Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 49 DECEMBER 9, 2014 P123 worthy opponent. They prove that money isn't necessarily everything. The other rivals should take in- spiration. They will need it. Suzuki's racing history is only one year shorter than Honda's, but has a curious subservient el- ement to it. The nascent factory followed Honda's 1959 TT debut in 1960, but not without first ob- taining at least implicit approval from Honda (whether they would have come anyway if Soichiro had said "no" is open to specu- lation; Suzuki was not especially scrupulous in obtaining race- winning two-stroke technology developed by MZ). But the deference remained a strange facet within Suzuki. When their definitive square-four RG500 two-stroke secured sev- en consecutive Manufacturers' titles between 1977 and 1982, it was when Honda was absent. When Honda returned, the ele- ment of junior partnership was reinstated. And over the course of almost three decades Suzuki won only two titles, before any chances of success dwindled radically with their unsuccess- ful V-four MotoGP four-stroke. A lack of comparable investment at factory level hobbled the team's best efforts, but nobody in Japan seemed to mind much. Suzuki's in-line four replace- ment made an underwhelming, but not unrespectable debut at the final race at Valencia. It was neither fast nor reliable, with two engine failures for rider Randy de Puniet in practice. If they'd had one more their return would have been blighted with a pit-lane start. But it was fast enough to show promise, and it showed even more still at tests the next day. New rider Aleix Espargaro placed tenth, only one second (exactly!) off Marquez's top time, and comfortably ahead of all the race-hardened produc- tion Hondas. In the bowdlerized words of the Polish national anthem, "all is not yet completely lost." But Su- zuki will have to look sharp and/ or spend freely to make the nec- essary improvement. The same is true of course of Ducati, although this process seems to be already under way under the saturnine stare of new boss Gigi Dall'Igna, whose record at Aprilia bolsters his reputation. He hasn't actually done much to the bike yet. That is to follow in time for next year's tests. All the same his logical approach and management style has been the greatest contribution to much im- proved results this year. Dovizio- so's fifth overall is the best since Stoner left at the end of 2010. Aprilia have a rather greater journey to make, since their start- ing point is the ART engine which dominated the production-based CRT class in 2012 and 2013, but fell badly short in the new Open category of 2014. Not yet equipped with pneumatic valve springs (they came at later tests) new riders Bautista and especial- ly Melandri were woefully off the pace in Valencia. They too have promised an all-new bike, but it's a year away at best. KTM, meanwhile, have done the dance of death with MotoGP once already; designing and building a V4 motor, then chang- ing their mind before racing it. They passed it on to the strug- gling Team Roberts, but it was badly underdeveloped and hor- rendously unreliable. But surely Dorna's new equaliz- ing dumb-down regulations – es- pecially those standardizing elec- tronics – will cut Honda down to size, and give the rest a chance to respond on an equal footing? Don't believe it. Stringent cost-control regs are already in place in Moto3, and Honda demonstrated with aching clarity this past season what they can do simply by deciding to swal- low the extra costs themselves. Peeved at KTM's superiority (achieved by a similar cost-swal- lowing policy) Honda decided to take the same approach. And proved that when it comes to swallowing costs, HRC has a much bigger appetite than any- body else. HRC will surely do the same in MotoGP. The greater the limitations imposed by the technical rules, the greater the expense in finding a way around them. Saving money favors the rich in just the same way as not saving money. CN

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