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/1542343
IN THE PADDOCK BY Mrcxrrt Scorr Troubled Times For 250s I I ow could anYone not be I I ootrmistrc about lvloroGP? H srnce the rour-srroke I I r"1:.r:rill".'??'; racing has grown in everl visible wa/..lust look at the paddock - where glass-front- ed hospitality suites stretch to the far horizon; iust look at the grandstands - packed with hysterical fans; just look at the TV coverage - fans worldwide agog at the exploits of the stars. And all led by a dream hero. a prince of personalities - the one and only Valentino Rossi- All marvelous enough for one to forget about dear departed Aprilia, and overlook the hemorrhaging of sponsorship money, with the departure (his year of Telefonica I,lovistar, Gauloises and BMW - or at least to regard it as a temporary blip. Well, this week close obseryers were hit with something less cheering. lust look at the entry list - shrinking year by year. Righr now there are iust 20 names on the l'4otoGP list. Admittedly, it is not complete, with another Yamaha to follow. Even this will only bring the total number to 21, far below the supposed minimum of 24: and. in any case, two of the existing entries (those of WCM Bimota) are by no means certain to make the season. Already we have had to come to terms with a hard-to-imagine grid - without l''lax Biaggi, as well as Alex Barros; and the "temporaD," departure of Team Pons. We knew it was going to be bad, but the reality still takes one aback. Perhaps this is a false picture, This is the last year of the 990s, and as a result there's a certain amount of treading water, and some wait and see. New engines and, therefore, potentially new entries are on the horizon for the 800cc class - one spec- ulation venuJre from no less than lYario lllian, taking a break from Fl after selling his llmor engine factorf to Mercedes- Benz. One can at least hope for a rebirth. But this may not be the most serious problem facing Grand Prix racinS as we know it. The next class down has been hit even harder as the 250s appear to have run into serious trouble- Their entry list numbers just 23, with possibly two more to be announced. Barely trvo thirds of a fullgrid. More si8nificantly, it has not happened bit by bit, as in the big class, but all in one go, over the winter. MotoGP may be in danger of disappearing up its own funda- ment. Bur the traditional support class is showing everl tign of dying on its feet. The fault is that the machines are t!vo- strokes, by now so unfashionable they are actually historic, lt doesn't matter in the I 25cc clxs (which, by the way, is thrivinS, with 39 entries), because they're just l25s - and there is no better way for younSsters to go reol racinS for relatively cheap. The 250cc racing two-stroke, howev- er, is a dead duck. One after the other, major racinS countries worldwide have dropped the class. The quarter-liter racers were replaced for the most pan with production-based iunior classes. The problem of replacing them at GP level is rather more complicat- ed, since the FlamminiAVorld Superbike axis has control over production-based four-stroke racinS- Various solutions have been mooted, ranging from downsized full MotoGP-style prototypes (ridiculously expensive, and in any case quite redun- dant) to twin or even sinSle-cylinder 400cc four-srrokes - though nobody is quite sure who would want to build these race engines, since they would have no other purpose than to fill the GP grids. At the last asking, during last season, the dithering MSMA failed to come to any decision. They knew the 250cc two- strokes were on borrowed time, but decided to lend them some more. until 2009. The state of the entry list for 2006, howeven suggests the problem will have to be faced rather sooner than that, unless the 250s are to become ridiculous. How much do we need them? Will Dorna be happy to let them wither on the vine, throwing yet more focus on the MotocP classl It would make marketing sense. But it would seem to have serious repercus- sions on MotoGB since the 250s are still very much the learner class of choice. Of the current l'lotocP riders, only a handful have not come up via 250s. Those graduares are led by former 250cc champi- on Rossi- Rising Honda riyal lYarco lYelandri and seasoned Ducati maniac Loris Capirossr have also won 250cc titles- Kawasaki's Shinya Nakano missed it by a whisker; while Toni Elia5 was a class GP winne( as was Carlos Checa, once upon a time. Even Sete Gibemau did a spell in 250s on his way up, as did Kenny RobensJr. and Colin Edwards, (the latter only in the USA). These alumni are joined by a wave of new graduates, with new double-champ Dani Pedrosa and his runner-up Casey Stoner both on Hondas. and Tace winner Randy de Puniet on a Kawasaki. It's not compulsory howevei and there are notable exceptions. Nicky Hayden and Makoto Tamada have both won MotoGP races without having raced in the smailer class first; John Hopkins never tried one either. These are the examples that must inspire the other high-grade newcomer Chris Vermeulen, straigtt out of World Superbikes onto a l'4otoGP Suzuki. Looking at the astonishingly fast lap times put up by Pedrosa at early tests ... right up there with the fast 8uys, with Stoner. etc. not far adrift, it seems once again that 250s really are the best way to train for a big 990. Or is that just the comfortable way of looking at it? Perhaps the truth is that the current generarion of MotoGP bikes, ail electroni- cally tamed and ride-by-wire, are as a result extraordinarily tame. Vaulting power outputs are one thing; wheelspin control, slide-management software, reduced-drag clutches and so on are quite another, The more these are developed - and it is happening very rapidly - the more even- tempered they become, rhe more accessi- ble are their extremes of performance, The example of Pedrosa makes it clear. Obviously he is a rider ofgreat alent. Even so, to iump off a 250 and onto a 990, and directly start runninS competitive lap times, is surely flattering his talent still further? That question will be answered when they actually start racing. we will see how fast Dani can go in the later laps of the race, when the tires go to jelly, and when experience becomes more valuable. And while we're watching that, the f4SMA had better be hard at work on devising a Junior class to provide the next generation of MotoGP stars. CN :ii -- JO I I CYCLE NEWS . MARCH 8,2W6 95 t r ) I -,--lr -,