Welcome to gpfuture.com
Welcome to the site, first launched in 2006 to promote the GP Future campaign. The campaign's ultimate aim is to get another Briton's name on the MotoGP Champion's trophy. British motorcyle racing fans have been waiting for this since 1977, when Barry Sheene won the 500cc World Championship. Until a British Champion emerges, we want to raise the public profile of motorcycle racing in the UK.
GP Future was formed after a number of long conversations with motorcycle racing fans. There are many fansite forum pages asking what might be done to get more British riders into MotoGP and how Britain could get a MotoGP champion. We spoke to a number of people in the racing community to get their views, including racers, team managers, series organisers, sponsors, reporters, etc. We were clearly preaching to the converted, at least within motorcycle circles. However, there is little or no recognition of the sport outside this group, except when there has been a major accident. GP Future would like to change that. You can find out more about our aims here.
Despite the lack of two-wheeled GP champions, we do acknowledge that Britain continues to produce regular champions in both the World Superbike Championship and the F1 Sidecar World Championship. In fact, Britain has had eleven world champions since 1996. The last champions were brothers Ben and Tom Birchall in 2009, who continue a long line of sidecar successes: Tim Reeves with his brother Tristan (then later with Patrick Farrant and Gregory Cluze), Steve Webster with Paul Woodhead and David James, Steve Abbott with Jamie Biggs and Darren Dixon with Andy Hetherington. Wouldn't it be good to have the premier Grand Prix solo class brought back to the UK too?
