BSB: Guintoli: 'I wanted to be somewhere I could challenge'

Sylvain Guintoli has said he doesn’t feel his move to the MCE British Superbike Championship for 2017 is a step down given the current situation of the Superbike World Championship. 

It’s currently nigh on impossible for anyone not riding a factory Kawasaki or Ducati on the world stage, so the 2014 World Champion has no issues with returning to BSB where he feels he can fight for the championship with Bennetts Suzuki on the all-new GSX-R1000 in 2017.

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“Racing in the UK makes no difference to me,” he said in an exclusive interview with MCN. “I just want to be somewhere I can challenge. You get frustrated when you can’t compete for the victory. I was lucky enough to be part of that exclusive group of those who had the right bike to fight for victory in WSB in 2013/14 and I won quite a bit and took the 2014 world title, but over the last two years even when things were good it was very, very hard to fight with the top four bikes as there is just too much of a gap to them.

“It is a cliché for a racer to say they want to win, but it’s the truth! I wake up every morning thinking about racing and how I can win and unfortunately I don’t feel with the options available I can do that in WSB and haven’t been able to do it the last two years and that’s why a change of scenery was needed for 2017.” 

For the full interview, pick up a copy of today’s MCN. 

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