Moto2 engine well short of performance target

Honda’s official Moto2 engine will produce a miserly 125bhp.

That is nearly 30bhp lower than initial targets and makes the spec CBR600RR motor around 20 to 25bhp less powerful than current World Supersport bikes.

HRC, who had admitted early reliability issue during bench testing, has sacrificed performance for reliability with riders getting a motor allocated to them for three races in the inaugural 250cc two-stroke replacement series.

International Race Teams Association boss Mike Trimby, speaking in this week’s MCN, said: “It will be highly competitive and it doesn’t matter if it is two seconds slower than 250 or World Supersport.

“It’s a compromise between power and reliability. In the first year it is a hell of risk to have a very powerful engine that may not be reliable.

“We want the engines to do about 1500ks between rebuilds to make it economically viable. Some of the World Supersport guys are doing 500ks between rebuilds.

“We don’t care if we’re not quicker than World Supersport. If World Supersport, which is supposedly a production engine is quicker than us, it just exposes the whole fallacy of World Superbike and World Supersport being a production class.”

The engines will be delivered to teams for the first official test in Valencia on March 1, though MCN understands not all teams will have the new spec motor available.