12 November 2005

Dear Sirs,
We learnt this week that our rider Valter Bartolini, engaged by us in the Supermoto World Championship, has been found positive in an anti-doping test carried out about two months ago during a race in the Supermoto Italian Championship.

The TM RACING neither can nor wishes to enter into the merits of the question because it is not competent to do so and in any case it concerns only and exclusively the rider and his real or presumed positiveness at the use of forbidden substances.

Valter Bartolini justified himself to TM RACING saying that in that period he was affected by a form of influenza and that probably the medicines taken contained the substance revealed by his analyses.

He has declared that he has appealed to the Italian Motorcycle Federation against this sentence and we hope that he can demonstrate what he has declared.

The fact remains that what has taken place has left us, to say the least, a little wrong footed and that a situation of this kind has never happened to us before.

TM RACING meanwhile, being absolutely opposed to this kind of thing, in its own and its sponsor’s interests who believe and invest in our image as well as in the interests of sport in general, wishes to emphasise that it dissociates itself and distances itself totally from the behaviour of the rider Valter Bartolini who must respond directly for his actions to the competent sporting authorities.

Meanwhile, we communicate that, for the last Grand Prix of the Supermoto World Championship that will take place this weekend in Latina, the TM SMX 700F will be ridden in the S1 category by the French rider Fabrice Guyot, while in the S2 rider Stefano Cruciani, who comes from the Superbike World Championship, will ride the SMX 450F.

TM RACING S.p.A.
Press Office