Following further discussions with DFX Honda team boss Daniele Carli, Steve Martin has decided it is not possible to find a workable solution to continue racing with the Italian squad for the remainder of the season.
"I've based my decision on the fact that this whole situation has now become unworkable," he explained, "I want to race competitively and safely, and you can't do that when the plans change continually with which races you'll be riding at, at every race weekend you have different people working on your bikes - some qualified to do so and some not - totally different set-ups, components and systems on each bike, different engines in each bike, different swing arms, no money, development or pre-race preparations going into your bikes and just continually starting from scratch every Friday of a race weekend, with a lottery of how the bikes and team are going to be."
Martin was initially informed two months ago that the DFX Honda team was experiencing financial difficulties and was unable to run two riders for the remainder of the season. As team-mate
Michel Fabrizio is a Honda Europe funded rider, this meant it would be Martin's ride in the 2007 World Superbike Championship in jeopardy.
Further discussions then revealed that sufficient funds could be made available to run Martin at the third round of the WSBK Championship at
Donington, and also the following three races at Valencia, Assen and Monza, on a race by race basis.
Whilst this solution was not ideal, it at least provided the experienced and gutsy Aussie rider with consistency until the season's mid point and also allowed time for additional team funding to be secured.
"But the goalposts were then changed again three weeks after that when the team notified me that they now didn't want to allocate money to running me at Assen, but only at the three remaining Italian rounds at Monza, Misano and Vallelunga," Martin continued.
