RIP 250GP's

It is with much sadness that, today, the last ever 250cc class FIM world championship race was run. Spains Hector Barbera on an aprillia won the race, but the final overall championship win was taken by Hiro Aoyama on his Honda - something of an irony there, since honda have been a major factor in the demise of the 250 class.

There have been many many excellent and often over-looked races in 250's. The class has spawned some of motorcycling's greatest riders.

Next year see's 600cc four-stroke motorcycles take the place of the 250's. Personally, I feel it should have been 400cc motorcycles. Honda will be supplying a standard engine, but teams are free to produce prototype chassis, which could provide some exciting innovations.

Are they going to be inline 4's?
Shame the stinkwheel has finally been defeated.

Yep. It's basically a CBR600 Supersports engine.

@ASH, I think a 400 would have cost no less, possibly more since the 600 engine is tried and tested already. Would a 400 (in Supersports type tune) make enough power for a prototype chassis to be quicker than a 125GP bike anyway? I'm not sure it would.

Originally Posted by Jackie_Black

Are they going to be inline 4's?

Yup, its practically the CBR6 cup.

[fizzwheel]

Originally Posted by Alpinestarhero

I feel it should have been 400cc motorcycles.

I dont. The whole idea behind moto2 was to keep the costs down. Designed, producing and manufacturing a 400cc engine from scratch would have been costly.

The CBR600 lump is proven, its reliable and it also means that with everybody running the same engine the racing should be nice and close. Also it free's up money to plough into chassis design and development...

I think its going to be interesting year next year.

I think they'll do well to beat the top Supersports lap times at first. Not easy to make a chassis that will perform better than Laverty's CBR600 has done this year, I'm not sure how much lighter the Moto2 bikes are allowed to be, though.

I hear commentators talking of how the DORNA people will look at Moto2 and then make a decision regarding the future of 125GP, but I do wonder just what they'd replace it with. 600 4stroke is kind of an obvious choice to greatly reduce costs and replace 250, but I don't know of an equivalent for 125 which is in such widespread use as the 600 is.

I was thinking 400cc because it retains the sort of half-capacity stepping stone. I suppose though, you could get 140 bhp really reliably from the 600 engines and they wouldnt require loads of servicing.

I think 125's should beopened up to test new 2-stroke technology. KTM had designed aKERS-type energy recovery system for their 125GP bikes, but were banned from using it. Wouldnt it be great to see the 125's being allowed to use alternate fuels (much research suggests 2-strokes burn really clean with ethanol etc), and how about an orbital-powered racer!

the 125s are staying arnt they?

[jambo]

Originally Posted by mototech

the 125s are staying arnt they?

Yes, for the next couple of years at least I'd imagine.

Personally I think Moto2 will be well worthy of watching next year. A control engine, ECU, and Throttle body setup should stop the problems motoGP had in it's infant years with the cost of teams having to develop an entirely new engine allowing those who had money to get a massive jump up.

I genuinely hope we'll see some proper innovation with chassis, as people try to use the area where there's a potential advantage to good effect. But the important thing is that enough people are capable of making a chassis that we should have a decent sized grid!

As for the times not being far off SS600's I think you'll be quite surprised.

Jambo

Would be nice if we could see some teams re-exploring the idea of hub-centre-steered chasis... James Parker's design seems like a ready-to-produce system
http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/fe..._steering.html