Aspar stand in the way of Alstare's MotoGP switch

Alstare Suzuki could have a fight on their hands if they want to be the second factory Suzuki team in MotoGP next season.

As revealed in MCN this week (May 30, 2007) Alstare want to switch from WSB to MotoGP with Kevin Schwantz as team leader, but current 125 and 250GP team Aspar are also well placed to make the switch and are currently in pole position to run the satellite Suzuki team.

500GP World Champion Kevin Schwantz has been linked to both teams but revealed that he feels negotiations with Aspar and Suzuki are more advanced.

Leaving Alstare with work to do if they are serious about quitting the WSB paddock, Schwantz said: “Suzuki has said they want be to be involved and I’d be happy do work for them either with a satellite team or the factory team.

“The choice of riders will be theirs, maybe someday I’d like to be the guy that chooses the riders and signs them, but with that goes a lot of other responsibility that I wouldn’t be ready for yet.

“My feeling is that Suzuki are close to something with Aspar. If Francis (Batta) talked to Suzuki they may have mentioned me, but I haven’t talked to Francis and Patricia for some time and not about running a team.

“I know Francis has done a great job for Suzuki in Superbike, but Suzuki hasn’t talked to me about Alstare yet.”