Is Suzuki leaving MotoGP due to a cheating scandal?
Only yesterday we informed you that Suzuki will be pulling the plug on its MotoGP activities at the end of this year. That news came as a complete surprise, but today there was even more bad news surrounding the Japanese brand.
Officially, Suzuki has not yet made a press release, but it looks like there is a lot of trouble going on in Hamamatsu. Today it emerged that Suzuki was involved in a large-scale fraud involving illegal software for their diesel cars.
The scandal is said to be comparable to Volkswagen's so-called cheating software from last decade. Then the German manufacturer got into hot water because they manipulated the software of their diesels to pretend cleaner emissions. The judiciary of Germany, Italy and Hungary carried out a number of searches last week in connection with illegal software.
The companies Fiat Chrysler (Stellantis) and Marelli are also under suspicion and received a visit from the public prosecutor's office. If these accusations are confirmed, Suzuki and the other companies can expect huge fines. And perhaps this will be the reason why the company announced earlier this week that they will be ending their MotoGP project at the end of this year.
After “dieselgate”, Volkswagen had to cough up no less than 40 billion dollars in fines, claims and costs to adjust the software. If this also awaits Suzuki, it will look bad for the racing department of the brand, which also stopped its MXGP activities in 2018.
Photos: Suzuki and Dieter Jans
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