Honda unlikely to sell all production machines for 2014

Honda has admitted as many of two of its new production RC213V racers could go unsold for the 2014 MotoGP world championship.

The Japanese factory had made available five production versions of its factory RC213V prototypes at a cost of between £800,000 and £1m for next season but presently only one order has been placed by Fausto Gresini’s Italian-based squad.

That bike has been strongly linked with British rider Scott Redding but HRC has admitted that it is likely to only sell another two or three bikes.

Talks continued last weekend during the US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca with the Spanish-based Aspar out and Paul Bird’s British PBM effort and Honda boss Livio Suppo, who has been negotiating with interested parties, told MCN: “I think to sell all five will be very difficult.

One thing is to have interest and a few weeks ago it looked like there was more interest than bikes available but then when you go to a conclusion it is always more difficult because of the economical situation. Some teams maybe already happy with the machine they have got and they may want to stay with that machine. I believe our bike will be very good and I think we will have between three and four on the grid.”

Double MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner will give his input into the production racer project when he takes part in four test sessions in Japan in a shock return to MotoGP action that was exclusively revealed by MCN on Monday.

With Yamaha confirming in Laguna Seca that it will only lease half of the four YZR-M1 engine packages it made available for 2014, it would appear that several current teams will continue to run highly tuned production 1000cc machines in bespoke frames.