Brodie Waters aboard Suzuki’s factory Supersport entry at the final round of the 2012 championship. Image: Andrew Gosling/TBG Sport.

Suzuki Motorcycles general manager Perry Morison says the return of a factory Supersport arm to their Australian Superbike Championship program is unlikely for future seasons.

The brand has had a strong factory presence within the competitive class for some years, with its most recent title coming at the hands of Troy Herfoss in 2010.

Team Suzuki’s Brodie Waters took the 2011 and 2012 championships right to the wire, ultimately beaten in the final stages by Kevin Curtain (factory Yamaha) and Mitchell Carr (privateer Triumph).

Morison said the annual review of the brand’s racing activity resulted in a re-structure, which meant the factory Supersport effort would be withdrawn.

“This year we re-structured our racing program and regretfully we had to set the Supersport program aside for at least this season,” said Morison. “It purely comes down to economics.

“We’re in a really tough marketplace, and in terms of our total budget, we made the decision that we wanted to allocate some more funds into other areas of the business and create more sales activity, and so unfortunately the Supersport program had to be set aside.”

The lack of a dedicated factory-prepared bike, however, does not necessarily mean Suzuki is decreasing its involvement in the category.

Morison points out that the move has allowed the available budget to be distributed across a wider range of riders.

“I think we’ve still maintained a very strong presence out there within the racing fraternity with the guys that we’re still supporting, and whilst people may not see it at the surface, for many many years we’ve also done our best to support privateers and semi-privateer riders out there, and dealer-supported riders,” he continued.

“We have a whole range of programs in place to assist not just our factory riders, but pretty much everyone who’s out there on a GSX-R is getting some level of support from Suzuki Australia.

“So whilst we don’t have a factory program out there, we’ve still got a lot of support across the ranks and other categories.”

While only speaking on the Suzuki brand’s behalf, Morison said it was likely the structure would remain the way it is in future seasons.

“There’s a school of thought that says that the class should be the domain of satellite-supported and dealer-supported level of riders, and that’s likely the way it’s going to stay for the time being, I would expect,” he said.

“At the moment I don’t think there’s the ability for the factories to be running fully factory-supported riders in that category.”

CycleOnline will present an in-depth Industry Insight feature with Morison next week, exploring Suzuki’s racing heritage, its past and present rider lineup, and view on other manufacturers becoming involved in the sport.