Petronas looks set to abandon its sponsorship of the Sepang Racing Team’s motorcycle grand prix racing operations, with both its Moto3 and Moto2 outfit’s being axed as a consequence.
The news was broken by British publication Autosport on Thursday evening, though no official confirmation has yet been made regarding the future of the organisation from the Sepang Racing Team.
The loss of income for the Malaysian team means it will have to shutter its Moto3 and Moto2 operations at the end of the current season, while its premier class programme will continue with fresh backing-SRT reported to have already negotiated a fresh deal with current suppliers Yamaha to receive a pair of B-spec M1’s for its 2022 campaign.
SRT elected not to comment on the reports directly when contacted by Motorsport Week, though said that “Team Management will talk in due course” regarding the subject.
The shuttering of SRT’s lightweight and intermediate class squad’s therefore leaves its riders-John McPhee and Darryn Binder on the Moto3 side as well as Xavi Vierge and Jake Dixon from Moto2-searching for new berths next year, though both Binder and Dixon have been linked with potentially taking one of SRT’s MotoGP seats.
The organisation’s premier class squad has two vacancies for next year following the decision to retire from MotoGP competition by Valentino Rossi joined with the expected switch to the factory Yamaha team for Franco Morbidelli as a result of the exit of Maverick Vinales.
The operation has suffered a tough ’21 so far following a pair of outstanding opening years competing in MotoGP as Yamaha’s official satellite team, scoring just a single rostrum courtesy of Morbidelli at Jerez-though his recent injury coupled with general inconsistency sees him lie only 13th overall.
Rossi has fared even worse as he sits a lowly 19th in the riders standings on 19 points, the seven-time premier class champion having scored a best of tenth at home in Italy-thus leaving Petronas SRT only ninth in the teams standings ahead of only Avintia and Tech 3 KTM.
This comes off its opening two years in the series where it secured a total of six victories courtesy of Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo, the former ending ’20 as vice-champion while the combined efforts of both riders saw it finish second in the team’s standings the same season.
