IT’S SOUNDING more and more likely that the Stiggy Honda WSB team could leave the Big H behind in 2010 and make a switch to Yamaha instead.
According to the paddock grapevine, the Stiggy squad are increasingly unimpressed by the lack of updates and support from Honda for the Fireblades they are running this season.
Stiggy are very much the number two Honda team in WSB, sitting someway back in the pecking order from the huge Ten Kate outfit. This is despite them outperforming the green and white machines for most of the first half of the season.
If they do make the switch from Honda to Yamaha it is unclear whether John Hopkins will be a part of their rider line-up. The English-born American has had an up and down year in WSB so far with decent early pace being sidelined after a couple of big crashes early on, the worst of which was a huge highside at Assen that left him with a badly dislocated hip. Hopkins is widely thought to be talking to other teams across other championships at the moment .
Stiggy’s other WSB rider, Leon Haslam, is likely to stay with the team for 2010. Haslam’s results have similarly been up and down this year, but the loss of performance at some tracks has been attributed to problems with the incredibly finicky Honda rather than the Brit.
