This is too bad: Ilmor puts racing on hold.

There Can Be Only One Number of posts : 3271 Registration date : 2007-02-03

Quote :: MotoGP's newest team, Ilmor, will sit out the forthcoming rounds of the 2007 world championship in order to work on sponsorship and machine development.

Ilmor had hoped to secure full 2007 sponsorship by competing in two rounds at the end of the 2006 season, thus proving to potential investors the seriousness of its 800cc project, but the team's X3 was still unbranded during last Saturday's season-opening Qatar Grand Prix.

To make matters worse, riders Andrew Pitt and Jeremy McWilliams have been permanently trapped at the tail of the field - between 3-5secs per lap from the front - making the team's chances of attracting significant sponsorship slim. McWilliams was forced to miss Saturday's race through injury, while Pitt retired from last place with a technical problem.

As a result of such on- and off-track troubles, team principal Mario Illien has made the difficult decision to call what he hopes will be a temporary halt to Ilmor GP's racing activities in order to chase badly needed funding and further on-track performance.

Ilmor's absence reduces the permanent MotoGP grid from 21 to 19 riders.

Crash.net