Suzuki deny GSV-R lease is too expensive

Suzuki has denied speculation that it deliberately set a high price to lease a GSV-R machine to avoid having to field three bikes in the 2009 MotoGP world championship.

Negotiations over the running of a third bike with Jorge Martinez appear to have stalled, with the cost of leasing one Suzuki GSV-R machine too high, according to sources close to the Spaniard.

Martinez now seems certain to clinch a deal with Ducati for current 250GP title contender Alvaro Bautista, with Suzuki still to commit to running a third bike.

Asked if Suzuki had set a high price to put off potential interest, factory team boss Paul Denning said: “No, that’s not the case at all. I can understand why someone might feel that way but Suzuki can only make a judgement based on its own company, its own resources and situation.

“My understanding is that Suzuki didn’t have the facility in place to offer a private team specification machine, like the Honda guys who are running last year’s spec machine. The support level between the Honda customer teams and the factory team is quite different and Honda has been extremely helpful to MotoGP by being able to do that.

“Suzuki would require quite an expansion of their racing activities to be able to do that and they don’t have the time or resources in place at the moment to supply the different parts at different specifications.

“Supplying a full factory bike is the only level in MotoGP that Suzuki knows. My understanding is that it was a very genuine and straight forward offer to supply factory backs but as always commercial factors come into play.”