Two statements in the article below. Ducati's official statement and a rather interesting (and snotty) reply from SBK.

The official Ducati statement contained this swipe at SBK- "Recently the Superbike World Championship, according to the current regulations, has been interpreted as moving more towards competition between prototypes rather than for bikes derived from production machines."

The word from the forums is Rossi broke the bank but some are saying all the ballast and restrictors are making their bike uncompetitive.

http://hellforleathe...-superbike.html

For some time Ducati has problems with the rules of the WSB, also Ducati needs to look to the future and needs to stay ahead of the game with technology. Racing with machines that it already developed, without able to tryout new developments, seems a bit weird in that concept.

So for me, its not that much of a surprise that Ducati as a factory stops racing in the WSB. For a company like Ducati racing in the MotoGP is much better, they can try the latest developments and try them against the latest of other manufacturers. Also Ducati wants to get ready for the expected big influx of MotoGP factory teams.

Who wants to ride the merry-go-round when the roller coaster is much more fun!