Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Back To The Five For Roberts D espite losing its KTM motors, Team Roberts will be in Bmo for this weekend's Czech GP. But whether the team will have tires or a rider is very much in question. "We're going. Our truck left on Saturday," team manager Chuck Aksland said after returning to England from a holiday in the United States on Sunday night, August 21. "We had a V-fIVe in the truck and we have all the components to run the KTM, barring the engines. We haven't really heard anything on that side, but we have to assume, based on their previous press release, that they're not going to be supporting us anymore." KTM announced in a press release on August 12 that it withdrawn its engine support from Team Roberts. Team Roberts responded with its own release on August 19. ':0.. KTM has not only failed to deliver competitive engines in the current racing season, they have also failed to live up to their funding responsibilities and choose to breach their commitment to supply engines, electronics, tires and a rider to Team Roberts 2005 MotoGP efforts," the release said. Since KTM was also paying for the Michelin tires and the salary of rider Shane "Shakey" Byrne, all elements of the team are in question. "We're as shocked as anybody," team owner Kenny Roberts said while on the road from his vacation home in Montana to his ranch in California. llThere were misun- derstandings, but only from sort of one guy, but we never talked to him." The one guy was KTM CEO Stefan Pierer. Roberts said he'd asked Plerer for a meeting around the time of the Chinese Gp, a race that Team Roberts wasn't able to contest because KTM engines weren't available. "Obviously, KTM didn't have engines prepared to go to China, which was fine," Aksland said. "We all agreed if that's the case, we're not going to go. But that was when the initial payments were starting to come late. We had discussed this with [Dorna CEO) Carmelo [Ezpeleta) and also were talking to KTM about what to do, and Carmelo had contacted Stefan Pierer and then had actually called us back and said Mr. Pierer is going to call Kenny right away." The call wasn't made. Aksland finally met with Pierer at the British GP at Donington Park in July, but Roberts didn't attend. Roberts' absence from a number of GPs didn't endear him to KTM. KTM's sports manager Pit Bierer denies there were money issues on the KTM side. "It hurts us if Team Roberts claims we have failed to live up to our funding responsibilities," he said. Bierer added that KTM originally agreed to only supply engines, but when Team Roberts said they didn't have enough sponsorship, KTM agreed to pay for the tires and rider. "It is my own money we are spending, not somebody else's," Pierer said, '-and we can fight for the 12Scc and 2SOcc championship for around S or 6 million euros a year, and this is what we concentrate on. Even if we would spend 20 million in MotoGp, we would only get to the level of Kawasaki. The BOOcc rule was the final straw. The smaller the capacity is on four-strokes, the more expensive it gets. We know this from 250cc motocross. Plus, with BOOcc, there is no connection to the road bikes. None of them have BOOcc." Pierer said that Proton's contribution to the Roberts' team was I million euros, with the burden of Michelin tires (50,000 euros) and Byrne's fee (about 300,000 euros) falling toKTM. "Our plan was to get closer to the pole times as the season progressed," Pierer said. "We said in the spring that if we only lose like two seconds, we shall decide around August if we run a real KTM worl

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