Young Guns Set To Load MotoGP Bullets

Although labelled a crasher early in his World championship career, no-one has ever doubted his speed, and as maturity and intelligent racecraft have been added to his acknowledged list of talents, he has become faster and more consistently on the top step of the podium.

Stoner could yet step onto the Camel Honda MotoGP machine for 2006 and unlike many of those young guns mentioned above, he is likely to be competitive from the outset, being more than prepared to step over the limits in order to establish where they are.

Track temperatures were down yesterday but Stoner has already demonstrated his ability to ride a MotoGP bike at an acceptable pace – in his first try at the new bike, the first time he has ridden a race bike larger than 250cc, Stoner was a tenth of a second quicker than the man who he hopes to team with at Honda under Sito Pons next year – Carlos Checa. Consider the feat for a moment and you’ll get a glimpse of the potential of Stoner. Checa finished fourth at the same track three days ago aboard the Ducati and has already spent several seasons on an RC211V. Stoner had never ridden one before yesterday.

Team Kenny Roberts Junior and Senior

Honda provided Kenny Roberts Junior with the chance to ride an RC211V at the Valencia test, in readiness for his father to take delivery of the engines which will allow the Team Roberts squad to continue in MotoGP with competitive engines for the first time.

The concept is not new. Honda has already set a precedent in contemporary MotoGP competition in partnership with Moriwaki, having made engines available to them even this season. Unfortunately, Roberts’ injury will prevent him from sampling V-5 Honda power, but a new direction for Honda’s MotoGP journey looks to be set onto the ever-changing face of the MotoGP compass. It is to be hoped that Roberts Senior will at last be able to fulfil his promise as a constructor with the powerful RC211V motor. His machinery has been innovative and sweet-handling but underpowered until now. Kenny Junior is still capable of the form he showed in 1998-2000 when he was one of the fastest in the world, culminating in his World title win of 2000.

Vermeulen to Team Suzuki

After two years at the forefront of World Superbike racing since he won the world supersport title, Chris Vermeulen is hot property. As reward for an excellent year in Superbikes, Honda put Vermeulen on its RC211V machine for the first time at the Australian Grand Prix a month ago and he promptly shot to the top of everyone’s required rider list with a mature display and eleventh place the very first time he had ridden the bike. He backed it up with another eleventh place a fortnight later in Turkey and when Honda couldn’t guarantee him a ride in 2006, signed with Suzuki to replace 2000 World MotoGP Champion Kenny Roberts Junior.

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