Rob McElnea defends Andrew Pitt drop

Rob McElnea has defended his decision to drop Andrew Pitt in favour of Loris Baz after drawing criticism from the Australian.

McElnea chose to retain Baz on the back of his impressive debut British Superbike outing with the Motorpoint Yamaha team at Croft, the young Frenchman taking the place of Pitt for the final two rounds of the season at Silverstone and Oulton Park.

The move left Pitt, who was set to make his comeback from injury at Silverstone, disappointed with the way he was released before he had even returned from injury.

However, McElnea insists the question mark over Pitt's fitness and the commercial boost the Motorpoint Yamaha team has received from Baz's arrival made it the correct decision.

"This is just another peak of our roller coaster season; we had concerns over Andrew's fitness and were running out of time to test him, that uncertainty made me nervous going into the final two rounds as we have to give our backers a good chance at a strong finish.

"Loris gave us all a huge boost of confidence and fired up our sponsors, to be able to now take him to a track where he has an advantage was an opportunity I could not pass over.

"We all feel for Andrew as he played no part in his injury and has to sit out the end of the year, I did not feel good about the decision but I would also not feel good about him taking another knock on his shoulder at Silverstone."