Lavilla makes his pitch, leaves PBM.

Outstanding performance from Lavilla considering the standard of his machinery. If I was a WSB or BSB boss I would definitely consider Gregorio.

Too little too late.

Where has he been all season, although i don't ecpect him to be winning on the spec of the bike he has, he should have been top ten regular.

Be nice to see him back in BSB though.

Well Makoto must have some very naughty photos
secreted away in a Swiss bault to keep his ride or
else he has a well worn chin bib and knee pads....

Nice Randall! I beleive Tamada's contract is with the Kawasaki factory - hopefully next year they listen to what he says and spend money on the changes he asks for.

Factory Kawasaki ? Whats the chance of Stalker riding again ? He does have much previous !

No chance of Stalker riding for Kwak again, not after his mid season switch. He was pretty entitled to do that considering his previous treatment at the hands of the green team but that's cost him any chance of riding for them again.

Rumour has it he might be on his way to Rob Mac Yam....

Why was it too little too late?

They got the bike late and I think Lavilla has done a good job considering the level of competition these days in WSB. He's had some good results - the 4th place at Donington being a highlight and has only failed to finish in the points twice - once due to a technical problem and other due to being taken out on the first lap in Germany.

Is the bike really as good as Paul Bird thinks? Walker hasn't done anything since joining the team at Brands, so that should tell him something. I think Bird is too quick to make the riders scapegoats, over the past few seasons, Byrne, Rutter, Sykes, McWilliams and now Lavilla have failed to have sucess with his team.

Lavilla was the Top Satellite team rider, ironically with
135 points outscored the Factory duo of Laconi/55 pts &
Tamada(46) total of 101 points. The ZX-10R also showed poorly
in BSB - heck the best Kaw. rider on the planet was Jamie Hacking
who finished 3rd in AMA SuperBike. Until Kaw. figures out bikes
need a chassis instead of more power they'll be last just like
their MotoGP machine. Oh & Sykes showed promise when he rode for
PB.in BSB

Check the difference in manufacturers points between kwak and the others...they didn't even make it into 3 figures! They really need to go away and look at the bike and it's development, it's years behind the others at the minute!

Lavilla and co where TRUE privateers without any support. He has rode brilliantly this year considering the circumstances. Birdy is making a terrible mistake in not only letting Lavilla go but changing to the hopeless Kwak. Laconi and Tamada are both 500/MotoGP winners and they looked awful on the kwak. The bike is so bad that Laconi said he was out the Kwak door weeks ago. Bird probably did Lavilla a favor in letting him go because next year they will be no where - with a factory bike!

~Is it really a bad thing if Paul Bird is taking the Kawasaki team, this just might make him drop into even more obscurity than now, and that can't be a bad thing for motorcycle racing can it?

Ray Von - One of Paul Birds hobbies is bike racing and he has spent a great deal of money on it over the years, his team taking 2 BSB superbike championships and a supersport championship. he has also given a lot of support to British 125GP riders including the current crop and is involved with the Maxtra GP project. Bike racing needs people like Paul Bird who are willing to dip into their admittedly deep pockets to fund race teams.

I am sure Paul Bird didn't have much choice with the riders and I hope Kawasaki will invest properly in their race effort for the first time for many years, but to coin a poultry phrase (as this is PBM) - I'm not counting my chickens!

Sick,

While i agree Paul Bird does put a lot of money into his racing, doesn't he just like telling everyone about it?

Every 5 minutes he chucking his toys out of pram and threatening to go rallying full time, or Stobarts don't want to be involved with bike racing and would prefer cars instead.

Fer christsakes Birdy get a grip the world does not revolve around you!

It's alright being outspoken if people respect what you are saying, i think he just says it to wind people up, rather than to highlight a real issue.

Thats my opinion anyway, just cos someone chucks aload of money into it, doesn't mean we should all bow down and kis his ass!

Ray - admittedly PB isn't likely to win a popularity contest - and I wouldn't want to work for him, but a lot of the criticism is unjustified - young riders have left because they have had better offers and some of his star (old) riders have underperformed. If I was paying with my own money I would also be passionate about the results. Stobart did switch their sponsorship so he was right about that.

I will be interested to see if his team can improve Kawasakis results, but with the arrival of BMW and Aprilia the game has just got a lot harder and Kawasaki have not taken WSB seriously for many years.

greg has signed to ride for pro ride superbike team formerly alto evolution for wsb 2009 and has been testing today in portugal i think he deserves a better ride than this and i for one am a little bit gutted he is not coming back to bsb good luck to him anyway me thinks his going to need it .