Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1063250
IN THE WIND P48 FOGGY PETRONAS BIKES TO GO UNDER THE HAMMER R emember the Foggy Petronas FP1 WorldSBK racer? This was a motorcycle mired in contro- versy, and one that carried the hopes of Malaysian superbike production on its shoulders. A project funded by Malaysian oil giant Petronas, developed by the Sauber Formula One team and headed by former WorldSBK Champion Carl Fogar- ty, the FP1 was ridden by Troy Corser, Steve Martin, Garry McCoy, Chris Walker and James Haydon, but it never achieved the kind of results its riders (and budget) were capable of. The team was withdrawn from competition in 2006, but there was still the issue of what hap- pened to the production bikes. In all, 150 FP1 street bikes, with a 900cc inline three-cylinder motor developed by Swiss company Suter, were made to get the machine homologated for WorldSBK competition, 75 in the UK and 75 in Malaysia. Sixty of these UK bikes were found in a warehouse in Essex, UK in 2010. Those bikes were never shipped to Malaysia, as it turns out, and the proceeding years saw a number of court cases between Petronas and their Malaysian partner, Momoto, who renamed the machine the Motomoto MM1. The case went on for so long the UK bikes were seemingly forgotten about and have ended up in the custody of British sports-car and sport-bike brokers and restorers Lanzante Motorsports. They have all been restored to original specification, however, the company has been coy as to just how they came into custody of these machines, and it will be interesting to see if Petronas and or Momoto come out to claim ownership. Expect more drama as this story plays out. CN LORENZO ALMOST RETIRED LAST YEAR J orge Lorenzo has admitted he was close to announcing his retirement at the start of the 2018 MotoGP season when his results did not seem to improve from his worst MotoGP season in 2017. Lorenzo made the claim while doing a television interview with UK broadcaster BT Sport, admit- ting before the Italian MotoGP race, things were not looking promising for the future. "I was a bit depressed, be- cause I saw before my eyes the possibility of withdrawing [retir- ing]," Lorenzo said. "I always thought it would be a relief to stop, but it was different when I found myself close to doing so. Being on the satellite Yamaha team would have been a good option [for 2019], but not the one I wanted. In sport, your value is given by the last races and at that moment it was terrible. I worked and trained like never before, but the results did not come. I knew I was close to victory but people did not believe it. I knew it; I knew what I was missing but at that moment the team probably did not believe in me." Lorenzo famously demanded a new fuel tank that gave him better braking support to help late-race fatigue, and used it to good effect in its first race by tak- ing a dominant win in the Italian MotoGP at Mugello. The next day he announced he was leaving