Former seven-times world champion, John Surtees - the only person to win both two and four-wheeled world championships - believes Britain desperately needs a grand prix world champion to generate real mainstream interest in the sport.

While Britain has produced three World Superbike champions - Carl Fogarty, Neil Hodgson and James Toseland - between 1999 and 2004, the last British grand prix world champion was Barry Sheene, way back in 1977.

As a result, and despite terrestrial TV coverage via the BBC, MotoGP - and even its superstar world champion Valentino Rossi - receive relatively little mainstream publicity in the UK... which is the main reason why the Italian moved to London.

"The big thing that we need for Great Britain - whether it's in A1, Formula One or MotoGP - is champions. In order for the mainstream media to latch on to it and feed it out there to society at large, we need nationals succeeding," Surtees told Crash.net.

"Unfortunately, in recent years, our motorcyclists have largely never taken on the MotoGP challenge. Some of them haven't had the opportunity, but the fact is that - for whatever reason - we haven't had a top rider for many years now, who is able to take on people at the top of grand prix racing.

"They have either got too much money from winning Superbike, lost the edge or just haven't had the opportunity," he added.

With Shane Byrne moving back to British Superbikes for 2006, James Ellison now looks like being the only British rider in MotoGP next year.

The former WCM rider is expected to ride a Dunlop shod 2006 spec Yamaha YZR-M1 for the Tech 3 team - which is potentially the most competitive premier-class ride for a British rider in over a decade.

Meanwhile, 18-year-old privateer Chaz Davies - the only British rider in the 250cc World Championship in recent seasons - is hoping to secure more competitive machinery for 2006, which would allow him to take the next step towards racing in the premier-class.