How will Team Foggy Petronas Racing do in their first year?

[Yoong Montoya]

It seems quite ambitious for Carl Fogarty to start his own WSBK team. I hope it goes well and that they don't go the way of the Prost Formula 1 team.

[f1manoz]

I think he's wasting his time looking at the SBK future, or lack of it.

Hope he has some success though, along with Troy, but taking on all those Ducati's will prove to be a daunting task.

[ASCII Man]

Team who what racing?? :confused:

[wreckless]

They are not wasting their time. In a few years wsbk will be flooded with manufacturers again after they realise they no longer have the money to put in a competative effort in gp. ie kawasaki and aprilia.

[f1manoz]

I'm not so sure wreckless, I'm not so sure. However, I do concur with the problems with MotoGP. This spending of hundreds of thousands on building competitive machinery can only last so long.

They should take a good look at F1 to see what escalating costs does to a once vibrant racing series.

If MotoGP introduce cost-cutting controls, while SBK is still around, then I will be confident that manufacturers will once again participate in SBK. But if this sort of control does not come in soon, I'm afraid SBK may not survive for too long, particularly if the only competitive bike is a Ducati.

[racer69]

It depends how the 4 cylinder 1000s go, if they are competitive with the twins, then manufacturers might see it worthwhile to enter a team, if they are just as uncompetitive as the 750s, nothing will change.

At least Suzuki is giving the 1000 four a go, and apparently Yamaha to for 2004.

[asha]

how will they go?

Well I hope! For Troy's sake.
I like that little guy, he is kinda like Biaggi when he is Hot he is Hot!

(he has the biaggi mouth attitude too!)

[gsr]

It's supposed to be a sweet handling bike, just lacking a bit of horsepower at the moment. Corser is the best rider in the series ,so when the bike gets up to speed look out!

[Warwick]

I thought the WSBK bikes had to be production based,and I didn't think the Petronas bike was?

[Dave Brand]

Originally posted by Warwick
I thought the WSBK bikes had to be production based,and I didn't think the Petronas bike was?

A production version will be available some time this year. Enough will be built to satisfy the FIM.

[gomick]

troy will rock - foggy to get race wins in 2003

[Dave Brand]

I've just seen the FIM's list of homologated bikes. The FP-1's on it, so they have convinced the FIM it's a production bike; now, where can I buy one?

[Gerrit]

Hundreds of thousands? More like hundreds of MILLIONS!!!!! HRC pumped 150 million in the RC211V alone, and are now working on a V-6. Yamaha are now working on an M3 which will replace the M1. Suzuki are said to be working on an inline four to replace the GSR-V. Clearly Aprilia and Ducati cannot afford this level of expenditure for long. Nor can Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki- Kevin Cameron recently referred to them as financially unguided missiles. Only Honda is in good financial shape.
Buit don't kid yourself about WSB being cheap- Jan Witteveen stated that in 2000, the WSB project was costing Aprilia more than 125, 250 and 500 TOGETHER!!!! The simple fact is, four-stroke racing eats money at a frightening rate. And with the world economy in a nosedive, all those sponsors who were predicted to be oh so eager to support MotoGP are no longer so eager- if, indeed, they ever were.
The brutal truth is that Honda now have the title as their property; they will simply outspend everybody else, giving them the choice of (a) competing with the Olympic ideal in mind (participating is more important than winning), or (b) withdrawing after a few years, or (c) spending themselves into bankruptcy. The 1950s all over again........
Not surprising really......... Honda drew up the current rules.
As for the FP team, nice try........ but where can I buy one, and more to the point, what will it cost????????