UPDATE: Andrew Pitt has confirmed that he has signed with Reitwagen Racing for the 2010 WSBK season.
After BMW added a satellite team to World Superbike, the German team, Reitwagen Racing, was expected to have Austrian Roland Resch at the helm of one of the team’s S1000RR bikes, with a second bike rumored to be still open.
A week later, Mat Mladin shook things up in WSBK, after he tweeted that he was contemplating an offer to ride in the World Superbike Championship. After this news, links began to be made between Mladin and Reitwagen Racing program.
Any hopes of the Australian AMA champion riding the Bavarian machine though seem to be dashed now though, as fellow Australian Andrew Pitt is expected to take up the second seat on the satellite squad instead of Mladin.
If these rumors are true, the main issue probably revolves around the level of support Reitwagen would receive from BMW, as Mladin had made it clear he would only move up to WSBK or MotoGP on competitive equipment. Reitwagen made it clear that they were only a satellite team, but would still be recieving support from Bavaria in some aspects of the bike. Those aspects were clearly not up to Mladin’s liking.
Other rumors peg Mladin with Yoshimura Suzuki at a few WSBK races, but the Japanese company has been silent on that possibility to date.
Pitt, in his own right, sounds like a strong competitor for the Reitwagen team. The Australian comes with references from MotoGP (via Kawasaki and Ilmor), World Superbike with Yamaha, and World Supersport with Kawasaki and Honda.
Source: MotoMatters; Photo: Smudge 9000
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