With 2006 almost complete, former World Superbike champion Neil Hodgson is still to secure a WSBK seat for next season - an unexpected, and worrying, situation he blames partly on reigning champion
Troy Bayliss and former employer Ducati.
Hodgson won the 2003 World Superbike title for the Italian company, propelling him into
MotoGP - but a disastrous season with the underfunded d'Antin team saw him return to the Ducati factory, albeit in the AMA Superbike championship. Having clinched the BSB crown (again with Ducati) three years before his world triumph, Hodgson set his sights on scoring an historic SBK trilogy, but his 999 struggled against the Japanese four-cylinders and a solitary win in the wet at Road America was his only reward for two often frustrating seasons in the 'States.
Ducati's decision to withdraw factory backing from the American championship then left Hodgson without an AMA ride, but the popular Briton was expected to leave the series anyway - having repeatedly indicated he wanted a world championship return in 2007. Hodgson expected to be slotted back into WSBK by Ducati, but the company retained
Lorenzo Lanzi - despite a tough 2006 - alongside dominant champion Bayliss at the factory team.
Hodgson claims to have been surprised by the announcement and believes that the opinion of his former team-mate Bayliss, who has signed to stay at Ducati until the end of 2008 - when the Australian will almost certainly retire, was a major factor:
"I'm currently in a position that I feel very uncomfortable with. I haven't experienced it for over ten years. I am unemployed," Hodgson told his official website earlier this month. "My career plans took an unsuspected turn when I was told by Ducati Corse that they would not be requiring my services for the 2007 World Superbike campaign.
"It appears that Troy Bayliss didn't want to be put under pressure by having a competitive team-mate and Ducati have bowed to his demands. This has left me as the longest-serving Ducati rider facing the prospect of changing brands for the first time in eight years."
