Team Roberts hoping new chassis will improve 2007 MotoGP fortunes

Kenny Roberts’ struggling MotoGP squad is to unveil a new chassis for the first time in the American GP at Laguna Seca (July 20-22, 2007). 

The Banbury-based squad is hoping the new chassis will help results improve with the Honda-powered KR212V a perennial backmarker in the first half of the 2007 MotoGP world championship.

But American legend Kenny Roberts Snr doesn’t believe the chassis will spark a dramatic upturn in fortunes, with a lack of performance from Honda’s new V4 800cc motor also proving a major handicap in 2007.

“Until we start to get the engine to actually move and accelerate when you turn the throttle, I don’t think any chassis that we have is going to make a big difference.

“We’ve got to do something and try to fix this thing. We can blame the tyres or the engine but that’s really not the truth. The truth is we don’t know and we’ve got to make educated guesses and keep moving. 

“We are going to fight on but it’s probably the lowest we have ever been in all the years we have been dealing with bikes.” Roberts told MCN.

He said the problems encountered so far in 2007 were issues never experienced previously by Team Roberts and he said: “We’ve been trying to get our heads around why it reacts so differently with so many of the changes we are making.

“It’s a problem that is completely out of the realm of all the problems we’ve ever had. Of all the things we have ever done, this is a problem we have not had confront us before.

“It doesn’t steer and when it doesn’t steer and you gas it up it spins. The new chassis is not a little surgery, it’s like major surgery because right now we are three seconds off the pace.

“It’s not a little thing we are looking at. First we have to get around the concept and say we can do this or that. It may be a short-term solution to guide us in the right direction but for sure it’s a long-term problem.”

Kenny Roberts said the team’s current plight has not been helped with Honda’s new RC212V motor falling way short of expectations.

A lack of top speed and acceleration have been two of the biggest complaints from riders, and HRC has still not given a confirmed date to any of its satellite teams about when they can expect upgrades to improve performance.

Triple world champion Roberts said he is baffled with Honda’s failure to build an engine capable of challenging rivals Ducati and Yamaha.

He added: “It is puzzling and it is un-Honda. I guess the way the four-stroke thing has to be developed and then supplied to all the private teams that it’s just too much. They just can’t handle that kind of volume I guess.

“They underestimated the performance and they admitted that to the press and they probably tell you guys more than us. I know that Honda is probably as shocked as everybody that the engine didn’t come out to what they thought it was.”

Kenny Roberts said he knew engine performance was a major weakness of his 2007 package when he drafted in son Kurtis Roberts to ride the bike for a fresh evaluation after 2000 world 500 champion Kenny Roberts Jnr struggled so much earlier in the season.

“Kenny wants a motor to move and go forward when you open the gas and it doesn’t do that yet. It doesn’t get much grip, it doesn’t turn well enough but it does everything it’s supposed to do but just two seconds slow.

“Every split we lose about five tenths. On the straights sometimes we lose a second. One of the things Kurtis said is the bike doesn’t accelerate.

“Kurtis comes in having ridden a lot 600s and goes ‘this thing doesn’t accelerate.’ When a 600 guy is telling you an 800 engine doesn’t accelerate you have a performance issue. Basically the engine does not accelerate.”