Q: What is the background of how Team Roberts and Honda came together on this racing program for 2006?
A: Last year our previous engine supplier left the team unexpectedly mid-season in anticipation of the displacement change to the class. When we lost our engine supplier, Honda stepped up for 2006.
Actually, HRC and Kenny Roberts go back a long way. For many years we have both been concerned about the development and evolution of GP racing, and we have had parallel goals.
Q: After racing against Honda, yourself as a rider and also as a team owner and manufacturer, what is your impression of working with Honda to date? Is it what you expected?
A: So far it has been a honeymoon experience. The level of cooperation is amazing. And the depth of Honda's efforts to leave no stone unturned is amazing. As a team owner, I feel that Honda genuinely likes this project. They like the fact that we are developing our own bike. It adds a human element to the process. We are a company with a passion for racing, and so is Honda.
Q: So despite working on different teams in the past, you feel like you now have a good match with Honda?
A: Over the years, I have admired Honda's philosophy about racing. But Honda always drank from a different cup of tea, and I am very happy to now be drinking out of that same cup. I'm overjoyed that I get to work with people who are as passionate as I am about racing and are committed to building a no-compromise product dedicated to racing. If you can't strive to win, what passion do you have? Over the years, I have witnessed that passion from HRC.
Q: After your agreement with Honda was settled, what was the process in designing your machine to incorporate the Honda engine?
A: It's not about taking a chassis and sliding in a Honda motor - it's not as simple as just changing the engine mounts. It's about designing a completely new chassis around the motor, one that works around the race track.
To do that we began with a Honda engine and started on the drawing board, working on a chassis from scratch in November. The only components we used from the previous machine are the main frame beams from the steering head to the swingarm pivot plates. In 67 days and 14 hours, we went from CAD/CAM drawings to firing up a brand-new bike. It was 11:30 at night at our facility in England and I started it myself. I called Kenny Jr. and told him that he had never ridden a bike like this before. All I had to do was twist the throttle and I knew. Then we packed the bike up and sent it to Japan the next day. When HRC got it they ran it on their dyno for 300 kilometers to get the airbox and fuel injection system dialed in. Then that bike was shipped to Malaysia for the first test and it ran perfectly.
Q: Your son Kenny Jr. rides for Team Roberts and he is a former World GP champion as well; what was his first on-track impression of the machine?
A: He rode it for three laps at Malaysia and came in with a big smile on his face. He said that it felt completely different than any other motorcycle he'd ever ridden. That motor is absolutely right, just spot-on. You can feel it - subtle things that make a huge difference. The response of that engine is something Jr. has never experienced. It gives you a natural response that can only come from a well-connected engine. In the MotoGP paddock there are lots of computerized engines, but this motorcycle feels 100 percent natural. You could feel that in the first two minutes. It is a Formula One motor in a motorcycle. The electronics on this motorcycle are not a band-aid - they're an aid. On other MotoGP bikes the electronics are designed to make up for engineering problems. But this motorcycle is engineered right and so it doesn't need a band-aid.
This is the best four-stroke engine Kenny Jr. has ever ridden in his life. He said that motor is perfect. Every time he gets on the bike, the motor is perfect. Our only concern is trying to live up to the potential of the motor with our chassis. We have no worries about the motor. We are now on our fourth chassis since November.
Q: How many parts did you have to design and make?
A: So far, about 480 components have been designed, drawn and manufactured by Team Roberts.
Q: How much power does the bike make?
A: A lot, but power and spec info are confidential.
Q: What do you think is the biggest advantage the Honda motor has that fans might not be aware of?
A: It offers amazing power delivery and drive off the corners; the V-5's grip is so good. Honda's experience with adapting power curves and this engine's reliability are more strong points.
Q: Who does the maintenance on the engine?
A: That process is simple; HRC trained our guys to work on the engine. And it's a great engine to work on. We rebuilt engines right in the pit in Australia; that would not have happened with our old motor. We used to send them back to England. From an engineering standpoint, the Honda engine is incredibly easy to work on. That's a Honda philosophy, and that's brilliant engineering and design. There is no way we could have done this with our old engine. The engineering capabilities of Honda, their ability to build something so simple that is so good is beyond my comprehension.
Q: What kind of engine tuning does your team do to the engine? What can you or do you change?
A: We have the capacity to change gearing, traction control, power settings to the engine. We do not change engine characteristics by swapping camshafts, for example. We change software related to rideability, which is directly related to lap times.
Q: Will you and the HRC teams share tuning and setup information during events this year or is it strictly independent work?
A: Our electronic people can talk to HRC about changes we want to make to mapping, and they have assisted us. They know what changes to make, and they collaborate with us. As a small company, we cannot ignore anything Honda wants to do. We don't want to be a problem. We want to be a solution. Everything we do has a purpose of some sort.
Q: You have a perspective on racing that runs incredibly deep; where do you think your team's effort for 2006 fits into the overall realm of things?
A: The Yamaha four-cylinder has characteristics on some parts of the track that make it unique, and same for the Honda five-cylinder. But I'm here to say that Honda's racing and engineering background is amazing. After working in the Formula One belt in England, I can tell you the Formula One community doesn't have that engineering capability. Honda has even given us suggestions to make our chassis better. They genuinely want to have a deeper relationship, and they want this venture to succeed. It's really amazing.
Q: With your flexibility to change and develop the chassis, do you think this might be an advantage compared to the other Honda teams?
A: We can do things they can't. We use Ohlins suspension components, for example. They have never had Ohlins suspension on one of their bikes, so we're generating brand-new information. We have more freedom to do more things than most people. That includes the bike, and even extends to riders. Everyone running the same motorcycle with different stickers is not my idea of a prototype machine. Our bike is a true prototype machine, which is a two-edged sword. We have the capability to completely screw up the bike. We also have the capability to make a really good motorcycle.
Q: Can you tell us about the sponsors of the team?
A: We are currently signing up sponsors, so we really don't have anything to announce yet. With the uplift of the Honda alliance and us having Kenny Jr. on board, our sponsorship situation is looking pretty good. But there has been a curious response to this new venture; when we announced that we were running a Honda engine, people responded to that and sent money to Cycle News to help the effort. For whatever reason, this effort has attracted a lot of positive attention world-wide.
Q: How many people work for Team Roberts?
A: We have around 35 people working for Team Roberts. They are 35 really good people. Two years ago we had 60 people, but of course we were also doing motors. We have enough people to do this project properly.
Q: Equipment wise, what is easier and harder for riders now compared to back when you were riding?
A: In my racing era, it was easy to see problems with the bike; sometimes they would wobble so hard it would be impossible to miss. Nowadays, everything is so refined it is very hard to see problems, and to put your finger on the problems. There's so much more engine management these days and so much more grip it doesn't even compare to when I was racing.
I'm not sure I would have been King Kenny with the amount of grip that's available these days. I was raised on and learned to ride a motorcycle with less grip and my style was developed around compensating for lack of grip.
We are now seeing guys coming up through 125 and 250 GP classes to MotoGP. It has something to do with the amount of grip we have now. I couldn't come close to riding a modern bike at the limit because of the grip now available. There has never been a time in history where tire development has been this high. There is so much side grip, you are so close to the limit, and you decrease your chances of saving it. The margin of error is much narrower. Now it is very seldom with the four-stroke and grip and rider aids that riders fall. It has made a good rider's job tougher; it hasn't made a bad rider's job better. You have to be on the bubble all the time. We may see more guys coming up from 125 and 250 classes when the MotoGP goes to 800cc. Those bikes are so much more precise than some of the street-based classes.
Yet in another way the bikes are more forgiving now because the powerbands are so good. They run from 6000 rpm to 15,000. My old two-stroke GP bikes wouldn't run below 10,000 rpm and they were done at 11,500. Today, you're at a 45-degree angle and hard on the gas. In my day, if you were at a 45-degree angle, you were looking for the softest hay bales to hit because you were on your ass. The tire and bike war is such that you must push the bike to the limit in order to make the bike work.
Q: So how does having Honda engines fit into all of this for the team?
A: That's simple. If it wasn't for Honda, I guarantee you I wouldn't be here running a racing team.
