Martin turns down Misano rides in favour of commentating

Steve Martin has turned down two World Supersport rides for this weekend’s Misano race and instead he’ll be at the Italian circuit TV commentating on Sunday’s races.

Martin officially parted company with the Italian DFXtreme Honda Superbike squad before Silverstone due to a number of reasons ranging from a lack of budget to uncompetitive machinery and unqualified staff.  

After a one off ride for the Factory Yamaha World Supersport squad in Valencia, Martin has been busy trying to find a ride, but isn’t prepared to take anything.

At the age of 38 Martin has a wealth of experience having raced for a variety of teams and manufacturers during his career.

Martin knows what he wants and needs to be successful so is holding out for the right opportunity.

He said: “I’m going to be commentating again in Misano. I had two options to ride; I could have gone out on the Caracchi Ducati 749 or the Moto1 Yamaha R6 in World Supersport.

“Both of them could have been okay but I didn’t want to do it half arsed – I wanted to get out and test the bikes before hand and that wasn’t possible.”

Although Martin has been missing from the racing action, he’s still been busy and was in Lausitzring in Germany last week testing a Yamaha France R1 Superbike alongside regular rider Schinichi Nakatomi.

He said: “The team built a bike up for the test for me to do a few laps on. The bike was pretty standard to be honest but it felt OK.

“The team want me to race it in Brno next month so there will be further discussions this weekend in Misano.”

Martin is also in demand on the World Endurance scene to ride for Yamaha Austria at next month’s prestigious Suzuka Eight-hour race.

He said: “The guys in Austria have been asking me to do it for a while and I’ve agreed. I’ve done the Eight-hour before and really enjoyed it.

“It was 1990 and I was riding a Yoshimura Suzuki. It was all going well until both me and my team-mate crashed and the bike caught on fire.”