Kawasaki won’t return to MotoGP

Bruno Gomes

April 23, 2019

The Akashi brand will continue to focus on the World Superbike championship because MotoGP costs ten times more and they don’t have the money.

Kawasaki in MotoGP

To run a competitive team in MotoGP and World Superbike at the same time isn’t easy. To do it, manufacturers need to invest a lot of money, and Kawasaki doesn’t want to do it. According to Kawasaki Racing Superbike manager Yoshimoto Matsuda, Dorna wants the Japanese team to return to MotoGP, but they don’t have the money to do it.

When Kawasaki decided to do an “all in” in the World Superbike championship, back in 2010, that decision meant that the Akashi based brand needed to remove their investments on other championships.

MotoGP requires a big investment, roughly ten times more than World Superbike, so it was an easy decision for Kawasaki to quit MotoGP.

Now that the Ninja ZX-10RR superbike has established as one of the most competitive bikes in WSBK, Dorna has been trying to persuade Kawasaki to return to MotoGP, but Yoshimoto Matsuda says that’s impossible.

According to the Japanese manager “MotoGP isn’t the way for us. You need to think about what you need to be racing in MotoGP. And what you get from it. In that perspective, MotoGP isn’t for us. It’s too expensive, so it’s a financial decision from us. MotoGP costs ten times more than SBK, at least. To race there, we need 60 or 70 million euros every season, and Honda spends 100 million euros. We can’t convince higher management to return to MotoGP to be fighting and finish 5^th”.

This means that we won’t see the “Green machine” back in MotoGP in the near future. Kawasaki will continue to focus on World Superbike, and rumors say that a new machine is being developed. Kawasaki spends roughly 8 million euros on its Superbike project.

Kawasaki in MotoGP