The press release issued earlier today by the Alstare Suzuki team came as no surprise: Alstare boss Francis Batta merely formalized the news that the team had released Leon Haslam from the second year of his two-year contract that Haslam had with the Alstare squad. The reasons given were obvious: A lack of sponsorship combined with a lack of support from Suzuki's Hamamatsu headquarters, despite Haslam coming perilously close to securing the 2010 World Superbike title. The Englishman is now free to finalize the switch to BMW which has been so widely leaked.

Alstare's problems with Suzuki are not the only difficulties which the Japanese factory faces. Suzuki's future in MotoGP is currently under discussion in Japan, with Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta flying out early for meetings with Suzuki bosses this week, according to British bike weekly Motorcycle News. Suzuki has not yet announced the level of support that it will give its MotoGP squad for 2011, though pulling out of the series is not an option. After Kawasaki announced it was withdrawing from the series, Ezpeleta went on a tour of all of the Japanese factories, to explain the terms of the contract they signed with Dorna and the consequences should any of them be tempted to follow Kawasaki's lead. Pulling out of MotoGP would prove to be at least as expensive as sitting out the year for Suzuki, and as a consequence, Paul Denning's Crescent Suzuki team will continue for at least one more year in the series. With the current contract between the manufacturers and Dorna ending after the 2011 season, Suzuki could seize that opportunity to pull out of the series altogether...

Source: http://motomatters.com/news/2010/09/...ntract_su.html