Ilmor se povlači iz MotoGP-ja

16/03/2007

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NAS SPONZOR

Nakon samo jedne trke i džinovskog napora koji su uložili u konstruisanje i izradu motocikala za ovo prestižno takmičenje Ilmor Engineering je odlučio da za nepoznati vremenski period obustavi moto GP program zbog nedostatka sponzora.

Šef Ilmora Marko Illien je odlučio da napusti motoGP zbog nedostatka sponzora. Ovo je juče objavio u intervjuu britanskom MCN magazinu. Ova neprijatna vest dolazi samo dve nedelje nakon što je Kenny Roberts najavljivao da se može desiti da odustane od MotoGP-ja iz istih razloga zbog kojih je Ilmor odustao.

PR iz Ilmor-a

Quote:

Ilmor GP postpone race programme

Brixworth, Northampton 15.03.07: Ilmor GP Team Principal Mario Illien today announced that the team will not be attending the second round of the MotoGP World Championship next week in Jerez. The teams“ race attendance has been suspended for the immediate future however engine development will continue and Illien expects for the team to return to the MotoGP racing scene as soon as key financial partners have been secured.
At this early stage in the project, racing and developing the engine and chassis has proved extremely costly for Ilmor“s owners. Since the team launched last year in Estoril at the penultimate round of the MotoGP Championship good progress has been made but further development is needed to become fully competitive on track.
Commenting on the announcement Ilmor GP Team Principal and Part Owner of Ilmor Engineering Mario Illien said: "We discussed the situation in great detail internally and obviously it was an extremely difficult decision for us to make. However once we went through all the options, we decided that the best course of action for the sake of the project as a whole would be to put the racing side of things on hold and continue developing.
"I would like to thank Dorna, IRTA, FIM and our technical partners and suppliers for their on-going support and patience during this time. My heart is still very much in the team – we have had fantastic support from the public and the media with some great coverage worldwide. I would also like to say how enormously proud I am of what we managed to achieve in a short space of time – we have a good group of people who have worked incredibly hard over the past few months. Both riders, Jeremy McWilliams and Andrew Pitt have given their best during a difficult development time – I couldn“t have asked for more than that.
"We have important meetings and discussions over the next few weeks which will help us to establish the future of the project and team – I am determined to explore all opportunities available to us and I“m hopeful that there will be a positive outcome."

i deo intervjua MCN-u

Quote:

“It is very disappointing and I underestimated how difficult it is to secure backing for this particular activity. I knew it would be expensive and I’m not surprised from the cost point of view, but I’m surprised how difficult it has been to secure the right backing. We were confident and hopeful that we would get sufficient backing to go racing and that has not materialised. We need to act rather than spending a lot of money and having a problem later on. We have been thinking about this for some time, I was thinking of withdrawing before the start of the season. As time went on I was hopeful we could secure something. But at the same time we moved forward in the hope and belief that we could attract some backing. We have some backing but not sufficient to run for the whole season. We are not going to race in Jerez. Dorna is very disappointed that we are not participating but they respect and understand our decision. Without financial support it is too difficult.Riders are extremely disappointed because they wanted to go racing and I want to as well. We will continue to work and try to find some backing. We haven’t given up and said this is it. The project is not dead at all. We have been working for 21 months on this project and I’m not going to walk away from it just like that. But if we continue like this we could be in difficulty and I don’t want to get to that point. We have to scale things down and be realistic," said Illien, a renowned Formula One engineer who only recently had been confident on top ten finishes in MotoGP.

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