CRT - The new prototypes

[n8r]

Where are you getting the billion figure? The largest budgets I heard of last time I noted it was like 350m for Toyota.

[tom]

Where are you getting the billion figure? The largest budgets I heard of last time I noted it was like 350m for Toyota.

The Cycle News interview with Shuhei Nakamoto that Gar posted. It is in the open racing days and he says Toyata spent $1.12 Billion in the same year. Perhaps they have the decimal point in the wrong place? it is an inconceivable amount of money to spend on something so frivolous.

[Cam D]

I was browsing the threads and the "CRT - The new prototypes", heading caught my eye. I was thinking that they aren't really very "prototype". The Honda is exactly the same spec as the TenKate superbike. To me CRT's are just re-inventing the wheel. May as well go back to TZ350's. I don't like them dumbing down MotoGP just for entertainments sake, but I'm proably being a bit of a purist. I was reading Gar's link http://cyclenews.coverleaf.com/cyclenews/20120626?#pg36 and Nakamoto san makes for an interesting read, especially in regard to costs of de-evolution. Nice to hear things from the factory perspective. Would like to hear more from Yamaha and Ducati.

[JanBros]

only since switching to the 990 4-strokes, there is talk of real prototypes. Before, there was no such rule in the rulebook and I thinck up until then everything went just fine. Very small companies could jump in and not make a fool of themselves.

It's only since the 990's and the fact that they HAVE to be prototypes , that MotoGP is in trouble. In the beginning they didn't know/realize, but that was the starting point to where we are now : in deep shit . In the early days, everything was new and exciting and everybody wanted a pice of it, but several have dropped out because it is just way too expensive. One of the reasons back then, was that putting money in 2-strokes was wasted money because irrelevant for streetbikes.
I'm pretty sure it was still cheaper for the factories back then to just "throw away some money on 2-strokes" and spend the rest on the streetbikes, than the amount of money now spent in MotoGP - almost as irrelevant ... when will we se the first pneumatic valve'd streetbike, or a 1000cc streetbike revving 18.000 rpm, ...

To all those purists stating MotoGP have to be pure prototypes and the "factories need to develop things somewhere", I say bollocks (excuse me for the word, but I thinck it is the only appropriate ). There isn't a single racing sereis in the world that was invented by factories because they thought they needed it to develop techniques.? Every single type of racing is invented by enthusiast who thought it might be fun to see who can be fastest on any bike/car they had at there disposal. Some of them had great ideas and more people joined in and their type of racing became so popular that at one oint a manufacturer thought "hey, why don't we take part in it to prove how good our products are". Of course the first one had succes : they had the deeper pockets. Another manufacturer saw what was happening and decided they couldn't let their competitor run away with it and they decided they needed to beat them in that series to show their products are better, and so one. In the end, the manufacturers kicked out the original truly enthusiasts because they didn't have the money to compete and because the manufacturers couldn't allow some "dumb f*ck who had a brilliant idea" beat the shit out of them, so they try to make the rules in such a way that one "brilliant idea" isn't gonna make you competitive.

conclusion , and I have said this a million times : the moment manufacturers step into a racing series, they will destroy it in the end. maybe later than sooner, but they will. A good racing series doesn't need factories to survive, they just need a lot of enthusiasts (participants and vieuwers). MotoGP won't die if it became CRT all the way. Factories will still participate (maybe sadly), just on another lower level.

Factories don't need MotoGP to develop long lasting enigines or fuel saving techniques. There is another racing series that would be perfect for that : endurance racing. Allow only one engine for a whole season, and saving fuel means less pitstops :ideal for them to learn those things. So Carmelo : tell them that, continue on your path and bann to low fuel limit's and engine allocations (isn't it just plane stupid that CRT's who are supposed to be better than world superbikes, have engines that our outperformed bye the superbikes ?)

[dave_m]

So the gap to the CRT bikes was lower, with 2 riders within a minute, but that's a sizeable gap at Sachsenring. I've heard RdP maybe be using too many of his engines as well, so we'll see if the CRT guys are the ones starting from pit lane even with 12 engines.

[Tormo4ever]

pretty sure Biaggi s RSV would beat the ART (specially considering he cn usea a ridiculous amount of enines per year).

And please get CE II off that dog ... you know that bike is the worst in the grid when he can t even beat the other crt s in the wet

[Gar]

Edwards' team is saying that had an electronics issue with has been solved:

http://www.forward-racing.com/News.aspx ... IdLingua=2

[o RATMAN o]

It's truely heart breaking to watch Edward's on that bike. I hope he gets something better next year.

Am I right in saying that the last race was the first time the CRT's have been lapped or have i just not noticed it before?

[Gar]

It was not a first and in fact the top CRTs were closer to the satellites than usual (probably owing to the nature of the track).