Team Effenbert withdraws from WSBK

The Liberty Racing team has announced their withdrawal from the World Superbike championship, leaving Australian Mark Aitchison (above) without a ride for the rest of the season

This hardly comes as a suprise when the team announced their withdrawal after the Silverstone round in 2012, missing the final four rounds of the series. The team made a late start in 2013,  missing the first round of the championship in Phillip Island. Now, after just three races, they have pulled out once again.

The World Superbike field is now left with just 18 full-time entries. However, Dorna and the MSMA hope that the new rules discussed recentlly, limiting the cost of a bike to 300,000 euros per rider per season, will help make the series more affordable, and help swell numbers on the grid.  There have been a number of contributing factors, including poor TV coverage of the series over the past few seasons and with numbers dropping season by season World Superbike is left with a relatively small number of full-time entries.

Below is the official press release issued by Liberty Racing on their withdrawal:

“The LIBERTY RACING TEAM EFFENBERT thanks Dorna WSBK Organization Srl that allowed to the team to be present at the start to the 2013 season, and try to recover the substantial value of the investment in marketing and promotional activities carried out in the Superbike World Championship from 2008 until today , first in sponsorships and then with direct participation.

Whereas, as noted, the main goal of our team is the use of racing according to the parameters necessary for the promotion of the brand of our main sponsor and our other partners, we have found, on our opinion, some difficulties during these races in pursuing this targets.

Anyway, we believe that the continuation of the adventure of the team in the WSBK 2013 is not of our further interest , as the sponsors and partners have decided to direct the promotional investment in other channels at this time achieve the value economic effort / visibility more appropriate to the volume of investments.

In the next days will be communicated in detail the operational programs. The Team takes this opportunity to thank publicly all those who have shared this adventure and all those who have spoken and written of us, whether good or bad.”

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