McGUINNESS ‘This is a strong step for British hopes’
What fantastic news about a new British Moto3 team with Michael Laverty at the helm (see left). And the fact they are taking over what is a great and well established team is significant.
They will have laptops full of data, gearings etc and that’s information you just can’t buy. As a rider, having that knowledge and infrastructure around you is invaluable. You can have the biggest budget but with the wrong people around you, you’re just wasting your time.
They’re obviously not going to walk in to Moto3 and start sticking it to the top boys – they’re going to need at least a year under their belt for success to start to flow. They need experience and support to succeed because for every Scott Ogden or Josh Whatley there will 30 Spaniards queuing up with arguably more opportunity to get into a top-level world championship team.
But this is a strong step in the
‘Just look at what Valentino has achieved’
right direction for British hopes. You just have to look at what Valentino achieved for new Italian stars with his academy – Bagnaia winning, Bastianini on the podium – it works. Rossi is at the helm and if you look at the start of every Moto2 or 3 race, Rossi is there with his head over the wall giving his riders the stare!
At the end of the day this can’t be a short-term project – it needs time and backing, time to deal with all the bumps and scrapes along the way.
It’s a bit of a rubbish thing to have to say but we haven’t got a load of British riders lining up to jump on the big bikes in MotoGP right now. So the only way to get Brits into MotoGP is to jump in the cauldron and get on with it. It’s very hard to get an opportunity, so unless you’re in the mix it’s not going to happen.
At the end of the day I pay for my BT Sport subscription, yes the racing is great but if you’re like me you want to see a Brit and unless we put the backing in that isn’t going to happen.
All of these riders come from somewhere, they have to be developed. There is no question we have the talent and now this is the making of the opportunity…