OFFICIAL PROGRAMME · BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
EXCITING CONTENT is one of those things that ’ s been and gone ,” said Team Principal Paul Denning - a veteran of BSB , MotoGP™ and latterly WorldSBK - at the Assen round . “ I think that affected everyone equally . Unfortunately , Brexit and the fact that the UK is no longer part of the European trading union and travel union is a massive disadvantage for any team based in the UK . You only need to know that we ’ ve now got an Italian subsidiary that most of our racing businesses runs through , and that Shaun Muir is moving to Portugal with his team , that tells you what you need to know .”
The Crescent team has two massive team trucks for just the racing operations ( hospitality is done by others in Europe ). There used to be one UK based truck for the team , and one usually in Europe , but that will also change soon . “ The ownership might transfer to our Italian business , but basically , more importantly , the logistics and location will be in Italy from the end of this year onwards ,” said Denning . “ It ’ s such a shame because it costs British truck builders , service people … the trade has been driven out of the UK .”
The 2008 global financial crash and its aftermath changed the dynamics of motorsport sponsorship fundamentally , but in specific terms has it become more or less difficult to gain outside sponsorship as a British Team in the 2020s - compared to other countries in Europe at least ? “ I don ‘ t know , to be honest ,” said Paul . “ I know that we ’ ve introduced some new partners this year , which has been fantastic . We ’ ve retained British companies like Brixx and expanded the relationship with McAMS and added really good partnerships with what you could view as smaller companies - but they ’ re actually really progressive companies in their field . Yet , on the other hand , we ’ ve got a Canadian-owned multi , multinational corporate foreign exchange business called Corpay , who were with us in a smaller way last year and in a bigger way because they see the value this year . I think it ’ s less about location completely , and more about relationship building and being able to deliver . Just the days of stickers on bikes are no longer relevant and we need to deliver to our partners value , away from the business .”
One of the changes that has also become regular in the past few years is that the UK itself hosts one round of the championship , not two - or even three as we had in the early years of the 2000s . For a UK based team , with the vast majority of the mechanics etc currently based in England , surely two national motorway runs out in the trucks from their base in Verwood , Dorset , would appear to be an easier and more time efficient operation than an equivalent round in Europe . Would Paul prefer to have one more WorldSBK outing in the UK ? “ I wish we were back in Imola because Imola is the European Laguna almost , one of the loveliest races of the year ,” said Paul , thinking out loud the same wish many in WorldSBK have had recently , before stating , “ I wish we had two rounds in the UK . But the numbers need to add up for everybody , and Brexit has probably put another nail in that coffin as well .”
So much for the South coast perspective , how about North Yorkshire ? With a home base in Guisborough , near Middlesborough , Shaun Muir ’ s SMR team made the big step of moving into WorldSBK racing after a successful period of growth and championship success in BSB , for reasons of ambition and expansion as much as anything else .
They have already been an Independent BMW team in WorldSBK , a semisupported direct customer team with Aprilia , and more recently the official partner of the official BMW Motorrad Motorsport team . Tech in Germany , logistics from the SMR guys in the UK ; a gross over-simplification , but also kinda correct in 2022 . The complications underlying their past two years
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