As you probably know by now, David Knight and BMW have parted company. But what went so wrong that he felt his only option was to leave mid season? Now a free agent David sheds some light on why he made the decision he has.

It's hard to believe but just six months into their debut season together David Knight and the BMW Motorrad Motorsport team have gone their separate ways. Joining the team for his return to the World Enduro Championship following two triumphant seasons in the States that saw him earn two GNCC titles and an EnduroCross title, the enduro world waited with baited breath to see what the Manx/German union would deliver in '09.

What we know now is that neither David nor BMW achieved anything like what they hoped to. With BMW ready to take their WEC program to the next level and hopefully challenge for World Championship titles in '09 the pre-season optimism that surrounded their mini "dream team" of Knight, Juha Salminen and Marko Tarkkala was soon ended at the WEC opener in Portugal where all riders struggled to perform as they expected.

While things having steadily improved for Juha Salminen, the opening three rounds of the series brought little but disappointment for Knight. Crashing out of day two at the series opener in Portugal, two below-par results in Spain were followed by a race-ending day one crash at the GP of Italy and another DNF on day two.

Retiring early on day one at the GP of Finland, having tried, one last time, to make things work, just one week later Knight was officially released from his contract - surprisingly on relatively good terms with his former team. Unable to gel with the G 450 X, Knight explains why he felt he needed to leave BMW.

Firstly, do you still stand by what you said at the end of last year, that you joined the BMW team because you wanted a new challenge?

Yes, absolutely. I know people will bang on about how it was a financial decision, but I felt the time was right to try something new. I'd been with KTM for a long time, had many successful years with them and felt that it would be good to start again, with a different manufacturer. The timing was right as I was returning to the WEC. It would have been satisfying to have won again with KTM but you only get one go at this so I thought it was time to try something new.

Some will say that you knew what the bike was like when you signed to ride for BMW, and that it can't have changed. Surely the issues you experienced at the opening WEC events, the lack of confidence, were always there?

What people forget is that when you test a bike to decide whether you're going to ride it or not, it's for a few hours, long enough to get a first impression of what it's like. I knew it was different, all bikes are to a certain amount, but back then I thought that different was just different and that with time I'd adapt and the bike would improve.

You and the team seemed genuinely happy with everything throughout the winter, was there nothing to suggest that tough times might lie ahead?

I think we made a few mistakes during the winter. We didn't test the bike back-to-back with any other bikes. It was always Juha, Marko and myself riding together on our BMWs. We were only comparing our speed to one another. Sometimes Juha was a little faster, other times I was the fastest, which was normal. We got confidant that we were riding well, and that we would do well in the world championship. At the same time I was doing good times around my tracks at home, so everything seemed okay. I did have a few crashes during the winter, which isn't like me. But I just put that down to maybe pushing a bit too hard.

The team's results at the opening WEC events in Portugal and Spain were a huge disappointment to everyone, were you genuinely as surprised as everyone else?

Looking back I should have realized something wasn't quite right after the first British Championship event. I normally dominate in those sandy conditions, but this year I was lucky to win. I was okay on the time controls but on the test I was trying as hard as I could but the times weren't coming. I was lucky to win. Again, at the first Spanish championship event, I couldn't ride as fast as I wanted. The times just wouldn't come. I realized something wasn't right, but I didn't know what exactly at the time. Three or four months earlier I'd raced against Ivan Cervantes in Mexico and annihilated him. Also at the WEC event in Wales last year I did okay - only Johnny [Aubert] and Juha were quicker than me.

How hard was it to accept at the very first round of the season that in terms of winning a championship your year was pretty much over?

It was really hard to accept. Not just for me but for the whole team. I think that we were all too confident that we would do well because riding with each other during the winter everything went okay. The biggest problem was that we didn't really know what we needed to do to improve the bikes. It was the first time we'd pushed as hard as we had so the problems were new to us all, certainly to me. My bike wasn't doing what I wanted it to do and the harder I pushed the worse it became.

Did you ever question whether it was you and not the bike?

No. I worked harder this winter than I've ever had. When I was training in Florida, I was keeping up with some fast U.S. motocross racers, so I knew my speed was good. I was faster on a motocross track than I'd ever been.

At round two in Spain things didn't improve and you got a little hot under the collar on a few occasions. Do you regret now getting a bit too fired up?

Things went from bad to worse in Spain. I hoped it would rain because I thought I'd be okay if it did. I was getting beaten by 15 seconds on tests in which I was getting everything perfect. That was hard. I was trying to explain what the bike was and wasn't doing, but the feeling I got was that some people in the team thought I was being an idiot. That's when I got pissed off. I know that I shouldn't have got so wound up, but that's just me. I get emotional when I don't perform like I know I can. I have a lot of fight in me, which is what has helped me win in the past. I got pissed off because I was pissed off at doing so badly. I wanted to be winning.

With a break before the GP of Italy everyone wanted to see if the team had been able to improve things. Juha's results got better but yours certainly didn't. Is that when you knew your year was truly over?

Yes, after Italy I knew the only thing we could do was make sure we improved the bike. We had some time before the race to test, but we didn't move things forward in a big way. I asked for some things to be changed, so we could eliminate certain areas of the bike as possibly being the problem, but I was told that couldn't happen. I was basically told that the bike was the way it is, and fundamentally it couldn't be changed in any big way. So we were back to playing around with steering head angles, shock length, stuff like that.

Was the bike better in Italy?

We had better traction, but I lost all feeling in the front end. I had no confidence. I was still trying to go as fast as I needed to try and win races, not riding at the level I felt comfortable or at the speed the bike would allow. That's why I crashed there.

Is that when you started thinking about possibly leaving the team?

Yes. There was no way I was going to win the championship, so I was ready to develop the bike. But like I said, because it was made clear that certain areas of the bike couldn't be changed I realized I'd hit a wall. To get over the wall and get ready for 2010, we needed to eliminate things by trying whatever we could. That wasn't going to happen.

Do you feel it was a case of the bike not suiting you, or not suiting high-level competition?

I don't want to say the bike can't perform at the highest level. Juha's results have improved, although his performances haven't much. He's a long way off the pace, a long way from where he should be. For 90 percent of riders the bike is fine. Throughout the winter, when I wasn't riding at 100 percent, I had no real problems. Look at Simo Kirssi, he loves the bike. He's able to finish fifth or sixth in the WEC and he has no problems with the bike at all. It's just when Juha, Marko or myself pushed 100 percent, we had issues. I've ridden the bike every day for the last seven months, so I know that it's not a case of needing more time to adjust to it.

Some will view your decision to leave as you simply throwing in the towel, giving up when you could have stuck it out. Do you consider what you've decided to do as being unprofessional in any way?

I know it's not what people expected me to do. And I know it doesn't happen very often. But it's what I know is the best thing to do. No one wanted things to work out more than I did. But riding the bike for the remainder of the season, not having the confidence to push as hard as I wanted or needed and knowing that fundamentally the bike wouldn't change, that's not an option to me. No amount of money makes up for not being able to enjoy my riding. I couldn't see any way forward, so I decided it was best for myself and the team if we parted company.

There was a lot of speculation concerning the sums of money involved in BMW signing yourself and Juha, surely sticking it out until the end of the season made financial sense?

The money doesn't concern me. To stay just because the money is good is wrong. I'm sure a lot of people will think Juha and I moved to BMW for the money. I know I didn't and I'm pretty sure Juha didn't. I had a great offer from KTM that was almost exactly the same, so it wasn't the money that attracted me. It was the new challenge. I've not been enjoying my riding. I couldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. And staying just to collect a pay check isn't me. I'm not the kind of person who can put up with being unhappy for the sake of a few [dollars].

Your separation from the team seems to have been amicable, on the surface at least. Is there any bad feeling between yourself and the team?

I'm sure that the fact that I've left hasn't pleased everyone. But not finishing races and performing badly is hardly good for the brand, is it? I'd like to think that I've left on reasonably good terms with everyone in the team. It's hard when any relationship ends, and it's the same with motorsport. Things just weren't working out, so you either do something about it or carry on the way you are. I got on well with everyone on the team, those that I knew and those that I didn't know until I joined. Wolfgang, the team manager, was really good to work for; Berti, the motorcycle sport boss, was also good to work for and understood my situation. It was hard near the end for me to get on well with Markus, the 450 project leader. I have a lot of respect for what he does and the new ideas he has brought to the bike, but as the guy that designed the bike, he sees things differently to me. There was never any bad feeling and the team always worked hard to try and improve things. The bike just didn't suit me, it's as simple as that.

The other side...
BMW's take on their spilt with Knight

When a rider leaves his team midseason you'd expect a war of words to rage between the two parties with each blaming the other for whatever problems caused the split. With David Knight's separation from the BMW Motorrad Motorsport team's there's been none of that. Despite their sizeable financial investment in the Manxman, and the disappointment that the results they all hoped for were never achieved, the break-up has been relatively straightforward. Amazingly uncomplicated in fact. From BMW's side, things simply weren't working out between David and his bike, and as team manager Wolfgang Fisher explains there's little point in continuing when things go beyond a certain point.

Obviously it's not a normal situation to have a rider leave a team during the middle of the season. When exactly did you realize that David might not be with the team for the full season?

The big wake up was obviously the opening rounds of the world championship. There we realized that things weren't quite as we all hoped. There were a lot of discussions within BMW about how we would move forward, but also about David's behavior during the race in Portugal, which wasn't helping things. The team's technicians tried hard to find the right configuration and set-up solutions for David both during and after those races. But it was after Sardinia that we realized that it was going to be hard to carry on. David wasn't riding the bike as we hoped he would. He had his reasons, but some of the other team riders continued to improve things. David felt that he didn't have the confidence in the bike that he needed.

Despite the obvious disappointment there doesn't seem to be any real bad feeling between David, yourself and the team. Were there ever any real hard times between either party?

No, not at all. We didn't have any fights, or big arguments. At the end of the day, it was just a case of David not combining with the bike as we hoped he would. David wanted to be competitive, as we also wanted him to be, but when we realized that it was going to take some time for that to happen it became hard for David. But there was no bad feeling. We saw no point in making him stay because he was suffering with the situation as much as we were. There would be no sense in keeping him on the team just to give autographs and not have him riding for us. David wanted to leave, and it was obvious there was no advantage to us keeping him.

David's lack of confidence when pushing at 100 percent has been given for the reason why things didn't work out. How disappointing was it for everyone in the team that you weren't able to find solutions?

It was really a massive disappointment, especially after the encouraging winter testing. I don't think anyone in the team thought that we would turn up at the first race and win everything, but we were confident that we could have some good results. What we found was that despite the development that we'd done before the season, we needed to continue development with riders that push the machinery harder than any of the riders we had before. It was disappointing that we weren't able to achieve what we hoped with David.

The first WEC races didn't go as planed, which meant that it was always going to be hard to lift the rider's motivation. How tough has it been from the team's point of view to see David leave midseason?

There's certainly no problem with the motivation of the team. We have constantly been making small steps in the right directions since the start of the world championship - we're just not as competitive as we'd like to be. Seeing David leave isn't what anyone wanted, obviously, but knowing that he wanted to leave meant that it would be hard to continue if he stayed. We have seen at the last few races that things are improving for Juha. His results have been much better and in Slovakia for the first time he led the E2 class after the first lap on day one. He made some mistakes himself, which prevented him from doing better, but it was a very good sign. We've had no technical problems either this season, so technically the bikes are very secure now.

Is it also a case that it has taken the riders a little longer to get used to the bikes than expected?

Yes. We know we need to make the bikes a little more forgiving so the riders can simply focus on their riding.

David's departure comes midway through the season. Is it simply a case of working to improve things during the second half of the season?

Yes, definitely. The goal is to keep working hard so that we can win before the end of the season. With a bit of luck it could have happened in Slovakia. We know things are moving forward all the time, so we will keep working.