Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

So if you go to HRC often, you must have s€en the 8OO. Can you tell us anything about it? Of course l've seen it, of course I know it, but of course I cannot tell you. Of course the piston is round. I cannot tell you how many. Do you know the cort increase between the 990 and the 800? Talking about works machine, factory machine that Nicky Hayden's riding now, it doesn't matter whether it's 990 or 800 or 500, it doesn't change much. Will the cost go up for the private teams? The cost of the private reams - we think it will be reduced and we're happy. The last time you had one rider on a factory bike, was Freddie Spencer with a V-tour in 1986. Why do you have only one rider on a full-factory bike? We're supporting both Repsol Honda facrory riders, Nicky [Hayden] and Dani [Pedrosa] are riding diflerent machines, but we are supporting both ofthem. Nicky and Dani are riding different machines with different engines. We try to improve Nicky's bike. so it's more perform- ance. At the moment the lap times are equal. As far as I understand, they chose the machines they're riding now Were you surprised by Dani's performance this Ye r,. Dani is doing very good. We expected him to do good, but it's over our expectations. But not only Dani, but Casey [Stoner], the young ones are doing so good. And Nicky is also improving a lot. The bike that Nicky is riding, Nicky said in Malaysia we got the impression that HRC was pushin8 him to ride the new bike. Now you say it was his choice. When he tried the first rime, it was true thar he liked the old one; finally it was his decision to ride what he has now. ln the racing, ifthe rider rides what he doesn't like, I don't think the results will be good. Why did Honda decide to support the new gener- ation of riders such as Casey Stoner and Elani Pedrosa? Vyas it be€ause the last year tyas a little bit dark for Honda? Are you talking about old riders? Does the performance of Hayden and Pedrosa show that the 250cc class is the only route to MotoGPI Superbike is no longer the way to MotoGP? We don't know in the future. l*4aybe there's a possi- bility. Our main thing for Honda is that those riders step up from 125 to 250 then MotoGB but that doesn't exclude other possibiliries. We are told that either this eyent or Turkey will be taking offthe calendar. Which would you choose to be taken off the championship? The manufacturers don't have the right to choose- The Shanghai circuit, the straight is long, so maybe it's nor so interesting for 125 and 250. l'm sure the race of tYotoGP will be interesting. The motorcycle market here is very bjg. Honda is looking for the next Valentino Rossi in MotoGP Do you think Dani Pedrosa is the next Valentino Rossi? Of course Dani has the possibility to become the next Valentino Rossi, but not onty Dani, but all the young ones in Honda camp have the possibilit/. Maybe, only one rider with superb performance won't be interesting. lt's interesting to have many good riders competing at the top level. What do you see as the future of the MotoGP class, as far as marketing, sporting view spgnror- ship! At the moment racing bike of MotoGP is different from the production machine we sell, so it's going a lit- tle bit far, far. But stillthe image of MotoGP reflects the top cateSor), of motorcycle racing and it .eflects the image of Honda. You said in Formula One the regulations are too extreme, ln what areas? All the computer software that we cannot see are very unclear. All the technolo$/ about what we need at the start of the race, such as tiaction control and clutch control, the regulations are very obscure, not fixed clearly. So all the technologies about these controls are improving. At the moment, concerninS the regulations about aerodynamics, it's very loose at the moment, compared to that of motorcycles, so this is a gray zone in Formula One. With Valentino Rossi you won three champi- onships, one in 500 and two in MotoGP lf Fer.ari is not interested, would Honda be interested in putting him in an Fl car? We want Valentino to r,de as long as possible in MotoGP And we are not interested to let Valentino ride in Formula One. We don't have spare time for that. ls Honda thinking of an RC2l lV streetbike? At the moment, we don't have any plan to Suild a five-cyljnder sreetbike. lf we continue to win the World Championship for three years, maybe we will think about it. Mr. lshii said you had liye years to stabilize the rules. ln five yea6 will they be much faster than there bikes? Why not smaller caparity? Ofcourse, the 800 will be faster, faster, faster But I'm sure that it is safer than the 990 in the first year. Maybe we say that we fix the 800 for five years, in that case we don't change the capacity. lf we need to think about some measure to think about safety, we will study it. So we have many options like rev limit, or the fuel, or tires, tire size and so on - the tire reflects the most to the per- formance. It's quite a safety issue if you start to play with the tires. At the moment, we don't have any rpecific ideas. But if the engineers of the tire manufacturers and the man- agers of the teams and rhe ride6 will discuss what's the best way to go, maybe there's some options. Have you thought about Valentino Rossi retuming to Honda? As long as he's racing in lYotoGE we won't say the possibility is zero, but at the moment there is no such thing. What have you thought watching Rossi win the past two years? We feel the result is disappointing for us, but as you know on the other side, Yamaha, that's a good target for us. Beating Valentino ls a very big target for HRC engi- neers so they have been trying and they are now trying ro beat him. Those effons will be a big, big advantage for Honda in the future. What do you think of the other competitors? Of course everybody is a rival, but the biggest rival for us is Valen(ino and Yamaha, Still, Ducati is improving - Ducati is becominS faster and Suzuki and Kawasaki are coming faster, so they are good rivals. Do you have one favorite championship? The most impressive memory for me is Freddie Spencer's first 500cc title in '83 and in '85 when he won both the 250 and 500. And another interesting race, this is not in the World Championship title, but when Freddie Spencer beat Kenny Roberts at Laguna Seca lin l98ll. Freddie was riding NR500 and Kenny was riding fZR500. TenJap heat race, not the true race, but the qualifying. So NR500 could win in l0 laps, but the dura- bility was a problem. We've heard some discussions that the MSMA have talked about four-stroke 600s or four-strokes will replace 125 and 25O. ls there a future for two- stroke racing bikes at racing level, or would you like to see smaller levels also have four-stroke bikes? ln the motocross world all the machines are becom- ing four-strokes and good four-stroke engines are being produced. From the manufacturers' side, if the regula- tions become four-stroke, we can adapt, but we must hear the opinion of all the racing people of what they thrnk about switching from rwo-stroke. Would you like to see smaller classes become four- stroke? I'm thinking about the environment. The rend is to become the four-stroke engine, but thinking about all this 125 and 250 class in the MotoGP paddock, I really doubt that it's necessary to put everything to four- stroke. This weekend has a Formula One race in Barcelona and MotoGP here. Where would you rather be! Today we have both races, so I was wondering which one to go to Barcelona or Shanghai, but I have already been to Bahrain, so l'm here. And l'llwatch the Formula One race in the hotel. Cll l'm wondering why there are so many young riders at the moment. The reason why we chose the young ones this year is not connected with the regulation change for the next year. We are using 990 this year, so we chose the best riderc for the 990 this year. The 99Os are very big Superbikes, there's nothing technically sperial about them. Can we expect something ditferent with the 800s? We think if we go to 800, we will have more evolu- tion. MotoGP and Formula One has different regula- tions, so the evolution of the Wvo categories are com- pletely diflerent. For F I we think the regulations of F I is too extreme. We think regulations of the FIM is quite reasonable. Within the limits of the regulations Siven by the FlM, both Honda and Yamaha and other manufactur- ers will try their best to get the best out of it, Using the throttle control and fuel injection and throttle fly by wire, we can control all the programs that we couldn't control in the past, like hoppinS- Various control systems ro control the combustion to control the combustion that lead to good economy, good consumption r:!te, so that in that case the size ofthe fuel tanks become smaller CYCLE NEWS . JUNE 14,2006 6I

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