Illien: work needed to attract sponsors

With Illien having disbanded his race team after failing to find the necessary sponsors to continue competing, he still thinks more needs to be done to make the sport attractive on the financial front.

This comes despite a sponsorship forum being held by MotoGP organisers Dorna to address the commercial and sponsorship problems that several teams are having.

Illien said: "I attended the Dorna sponsorship workshop in Barcelona a couple of weeks ago and it is clear that further work needs to be done to make the sport more appealing to commercial partners.

"Key people outside of the sport don't really understand what MotoGP is and the fantastic opportunity it represents by association. I also think that people perhaps underestimated the impact that the decline in tobacco sponsorship would have on the sport.

"Added to this potential corporate sponsors are much more environmentally aware these days - I'm a strong believer that environmental issues and professional motorsport shouldn't be mutually exclusive. There are plenty of opportunities to be explored on this front."