The MotoGP championship series is due to begin again on the 11th April 2010 and there will be a new series joining the calendar this year, with the 250cc 2 stroke machines being replaced by the new 600cc 4 stroke Moto2 championship, which will see competitors utilise a spec Honda engine which cannot be tampered with in any way and spec tyres from Dunlop. It certainly should put a lot more emphasis on the team and riders in the championship as they battle it out to see who will be the inaugural champion
The only things that the team can tweak are the motorcycles chassis and the suspension settings the rest is down to the rider. This has led many pundits to predict that the new Moto2 championship could provide some very close racing indeed, some suggest it might even be able to rival the World Superbike and World Supersport paddocks
Of course with the governing body Dorna modifying the format for the championship once more it has led to a flurry of product development from the teams, and this product development looks like it could continue right up to and through the opening round of the championship
With the new Honda engines not set to be with the teams until half a month before the opening round of the championship, none of the new teams are quite sure how their new chassis will handle with the excess power that will be produced above and beyond the standard Honda CBR600RR engine that most teams have been testing with. This means that we might see a flurry of product development over the last few weeks leading up to the opening round as teams drastically attempt to tame the beast of an engine
Looking over some of the bikes that have arrived in the paddock makes you think about the commercial market of the motorcycle and particularly the 600cc market, because of the credit crunch development within the market has been slim to non-existent and it almost appears that a number of the teams have done the product development and design for Honda, Yamaha or any of the other major brands. There are some super sexy designs and models around the paddock and you could quite easily see some of those designs making it on to the road at some stage
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