Kenny Roberts looks to Britain for Moto2 chassis project

American legend Kenny Roberts will turn to British expertise to help his plans for a shock return to racing in the new 600cc four-stroke Moto2 class.

The Californian wants to run a two-rider effort in the 250cc two-stroke replacement class next year and has already starting drawing up a chassis for the class that will run specially tuned Honda CBR600RR engines.

Although Roberts wound up his Banbury operation last year having quit MotoGP at the end of 2007, he has retained a skeleton staff in Britain’s Formula One belt read to work on the Moto2 project.

Roberts told MCN: “I think Moto2 works because it is an even playing field and that’s interesting because in MotoGP it isn’t. If you’re on the wrong motorcycle there’s nothing you can do about it. But paying a lot of money to be on the wrong motorcycle doesn’t make a lot of sense.

“We’ll build our own frame. We still have a skeleton crew and we still have the equipment in England to build a chassis but I’m not sure. We’d certainly design it in England but probably build it somewhere else. That’s yet to be determined.”

 Roberts has previous experience to call upon for his Moto2 effort having worked on a Triumph TT600 triple trackday special three years ago.

He added: “We just have to update it, but we had a trackday bike originally designed. It was a Triumph three-cylinder at the time but all the seat and tank and all that stuff is done. It will probably take us three months to have a motorcycle ready once I say go. All that stuff is still in place and designing it and making it is really easy for us”.

Roberts has expressed interest in current 250GP title contender Hiroshi Aoyama Aoyama.

“He’s definitely one of the guys right now but the last thing we’re going to be working on now is riders. We’d like to find somebody that can win obviously, even though we’ve been out of the game for a little while, “said Roberts, who has also been linked with American Steve Bonsey.