Gregorio Lavilla at Donington MotoGP

WSB star Gregorio Lavilla is at the Donington MotoGP round this weekend.

MCN caught up with him when he was sat at the back of the press office, dialled to the internet to catch up on the latest WSB practice times!

Lavilla – the 2005 BSB Champion – is currently sidelined from WSB after the Guandalini Ducati team he was riding for hit financial problems and decided to concentrate solely on Jacob Smrz at Brno.

At Donington, Lavilla was sporting a Derbi team shirt and said: “At the start of the year a friend asked me if I’d be interested to help out developing a testing plan and a rider training programme.

“It’s something I’d be interested in doing when I finish racing so I agreed to help.

“And, as I have no racing this weekend, I thought I’d come to Donington to help the team.”

But don’t get the idea Lavilla is ready to hang up his leathers just yet. “While I’m still enjoying my racing I’ll continue,” he said. “It’s been a pretty frustrating year because this is the second time that financial problems have left me without a ride.

“My current team say they are hoping to find a sponsor for the next round and if that happens, then hopefully I’ll be racing again.”

So what’s the chance of Lavilla coming back to BSB? Lavilla evaded answering the question directly but his answer did suggest that he would consider it in future – providing the deal suited him.

“You know, I had talks with Hydrex Honda this winter but we couldn’t agree terms – but it wasn’t about money,” he said.

“The team wanted me to race in BSB but I was still keen to race in WSB. For the team I agreed to do one year in BSB, providing we did the following year in WSB but we weren’t able to finalise anything.”