Ex-BSB boss plans all-British 125 and 250GP teams
(This article indirectly led to the creation of GP Future. Thanks to Crash.net for allowing us to reproduce it.)
Former world champion John Surtees - still the only person to have won both two and four-wheeled world championships - believes Britain desperately needs a grand prix world champion to generate mainstream interest in the sport. While Britain has produced three World Superbike champions - Carl Fogarty, Neil Hodgson and James Toseland - between 1999 and 2004, the last British grand prix world champion was Barry Sheene, way back in 1977.
As a result, and despite terrestrial TV coverage via the BBC, MotoGP - and even its charismatic superstar former world champion Valentino Rossi - receive little mainstream publicity in the UK, which is the main reason the Italian moved to London.
"The big thing that we need for Great Britain, whether it's in A1, Formula One or MotoGP, is champions. In order for the mainstream media to latch on to it and feed it out there to society at large, we need Nationals succeeding," Surtees told Crash.net.
"Unfortunately, in recent years, our motorcyclists have largely never taken on the MotoGP challenge. Some of them haven't had the opportunity but the fact is that, for whatever reason, we haven't had a top rider for many years now able to take on people at the top of grand prix racing.
"They have either got too much money from winning Superbike, lost the edge or just haven't had the opportunity," he added.
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