Kawasaki officially pulled out of MotoGP racing at the end of 2008 due to the economic crisis, but to avoid Dorna suing them for breach of contract, Kawasaki continued for one more season with their ZX-RR, and since the Akashi manufacturer didn’t want to have any factory involvement, they gave their project to Forward Racing, fielding it under the banner of Hayate Racing Team, with Marco Melandri as their sole rider.
During NGM Forward’s official MotoGP and Moto2 presentation in Milan, Giovanni Cuzari told GPone.
com that he had just had returned from a meeting with Carmelo Ezpeleta where they discussed Honda and Yamaha’s 2014 projects (Honda’s production racer and Yamaha leasing engines) but he also revealed they he has been in contact with both Suzuki and Kawasaki, so besides Suzuki who is actively looking to return, with several tests already in place, Kawasaki is now also showing an interest in returning to MotoGP.
“I spoke to Ichiro Yoda, and they are interested,” Cuzari told the Italian website.
With NGM Forward Racing currently running Kawasaki engines in their FTR chassis in MotoGP, Forward racing would be the obvious team structure for Kawasaki to use for their return, as Dorna has already said, new manufacturers who want to race in MotoGP will have to use exsisting teams.
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