Blog: New bikes, no cash

MCN MotoGP reporter Matt Birt exclusively shares hs views on the upcoming race at Estoril in Portugal. Matt has spent years living out of a suitcase to follow the MotoGP circus around the world, to get the inside scoops for MCN…

New bikes and no money
Before I pack my bags and head off to Luton Airport at stupid o’clock tomorrow morning, I was thinking that not all eyes will be locked on the title scrap between Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden in Estoril this weekend.
Most eyes will be on those two of course, with it not beyond the realms of fantasy for Hayden to win the title on Sunday. Adding another dimension to this weekend will be the arrival of the Ilmor X3 800cc machine, and I got thinking about it after receiving an invitation to their launch press conference tomorrow afternoon.
Hopefully on Sunday we’ll get to see the first of the generation machines race, though some doom and gloom merchants are already predicting Garry McCoy won’t qualify, and if he does, the bike won’t last for the 28-laps.
While there is a fair amount of anticipation about what the X3 will be like, there’s also a fair amount of scepticism at the moment in the paddock.
Not least because the engine has been built by Ilmor, a company that has enjoyed phenomenal success in Formula One and other forms of four-wheel motorsport.
Ilmor boss Mario Illien has an incredible CV too, but it is easy to decipher why that scepticism currently exists.
Apparently, Illien has had 12 staff burning the midnight oil on the motor for months now. But he admitted to me when I met him for the first time at the Brno GP back in August that none of them had previous experience of working on motorcycles. True, they have former racer and renowned chassis expert Eskil Suter working on the project, but such collaborations haven’t worked in the past, and that’s fact when you look back.
Just cast your mind back to Aprilia, KTM, Sauber and Kenny Roberts.. Proton project. The recurring theme I’m getting is Formula One engineers heavily influenced all of them. And all were unmitigated disasters. Aprilia’s RS3 used F1 technology and nearly sent them into bankruptcy, KTMs F1-inspired V4 engine was aborted last season as continuing would have sent them to the wall, while the Sauber never even saw the light of day despite an unveiling at Sepang in 2001.
For whatever reason, people who have dabbled in MotoGP after a lifetime in car racing just haven’t been able to translate their engineering expertise into fully understanding motorcycle dynamics.
I hope Illien and Suter break the mould. The project needs to succeed. This year 19 bikes have been going round the track, and while we’ve witnessed some breathtaking racing, there’s been a concern that the live audience hasn’t been getting value for money.
Perhaps the success of one of these new projects will open the floodgates for others to have a crack at MotoGP.
But it will all come down to money and here lies another problem for the men behind the X3.
Getting the bike competitive is only part of the huge mountain Ilmor have to climb. To compete and then beat the likes of Honda and Yamaha with all their expertise can..t be done without cash.
And how do you attract huge investment for a bike that hasn’t turned a wheel in anger? Illien told me he was looking at a budget of between 15 and 20 million Euros to run a two-rider team in 2007.
On an unproven project that is going to seriously test the skills of your marketing director. This is what happened to Team Roberts this year. Kenny and his guys were approaching sponsors and they had something to sell. They had a former world champion rider on Michelin tyres using a Honda engine. Yet they couldn’t get a sponsor.
That’s because the first question potential sponsors will ask is: ..Are you going to beat Valentino Rossi?..
The problem facing Ilmor is indicative of the state of the sport at the moment. Fausto Gresini has lost his title sponsor yet he..s got one of the highest profile riders on board who is still fighting for the world championship in Marco Melandri.
And look at Yamaha. This time last year they were scratching around for a sponsor and they have the most marketable commodity the sport has ever seen in Valentino. So what chance has anybody else got when Yamaha bosses can’t sell Rossi – the second most successful rider in history and one of the most charismatic and popular sportsman on the planet?
There is no new money coming into the sport. Konica Minolta were the last new sponsor to commit and they’ve hardly had value for money with Makoto Tamada have they?
And this is at a time when a second rule change in five years in MotoGP hardly brings economic stability, with manufacturers having to plough more money in to development of their new 800cc bikes. Some of that will inevitably be passed down the chain and the cost of leasing bikes will only increase.
Fingers crossed for the X3.
Later. M.