Now Ekerold wants to expand to a two-rider World Supersport team in 2008. But he warns: "If the money comes from Spain or Italy, I'll look for riders from those countries."
Edwards Back to WSBK?
Texan
Colin Edwards, the former double World Superbike champion and now team-mate to
Valentino Rossi in the Fiat Yamaha
MotoGP team, dropped in to Silverstone at the weekend to say hello to old mates - and inevitably sparked rumours of his return to the series.
It hasn't been easy for Edwards in MotoGP: a hard-working sidekick to Rossi, but no wins in 71 races. Now paddock rumours suggest that
Jorge Lorenzo, Spain's 20-year-old 250cc world champion who is leading the series again this year, has secretly signed for Yamaha for 2008 as the company starts to develop a MotoGP youth policy and prepares for the post-Rossi era. Having seen
Casey Stoner captured by Ducati, where he is now leading the world championship, Yamaha doesn't want to be caught out again.
Paddock chatter also whispers that while Rossi may have fought against Stoner moving to Yamaha, his opinions would be over-ruled in the case of Lorenzo. Yamaha just has to move on. And Rossi, 28, could drive world rally cars in 2009 for Fiat, which may explain the odd conjunction of an Italian car manufacturer backing a Japanese motorcycle factory.
So back to Edwards. Now 33, he won his Superbike titles in 2000 and 2002 with Honda, which may explain his appearance in the Ten Kate Honda hospitality unit at
Silverstone, and the golf he played during the weekend with a Honda executive.
You can start to work out a scenario here: Were
James Toseland to depart to MotoGP in 2008, Ten Kate and Honda could form a dynamic Superbike pairing consisting of Edwards and
Kenan Sofuoglu, the 22-year-old Turk who is leading the World Supersport series for the Dutch team. Or maybe this is just paddock theorising spiralling out of control. Big Gerrit Ten Kate, boss of the Dutch operation, denied at Silverstone that a deal was being cooked up. So did Honda. We'll see.
All-New for WSBK: Tracks, Bikes and Business Partner.
This season the World Superbike Championship looks like a series that's desperately grabbing at any track that will host a round, with three events in Britain and three in Italy. But appearances may be deceptive, and WSBK may soon be improving in terms of the shape of its calendar and the quality of the grid.
