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Two-strokes will stay for a very simple reason: cost. The amount of money required for four-stroke racing is so much more that private teams won't be able to afford it. To give an idea, Witteveen stated that Aprilia's 2000 WSB effort, using production-based four-strokes, was costing more than Aprilia's 125, 250 and 500 efforts put together. King kenny held talks with sauber about the possibility of using the sauber engines, but this would have cost him more in engines alone than his TOTAL budget as team manager of the Marlboro Yamaha squad. And for this one has only engines. Add to this the cost of riders, mechanics, travel and accommodation, and of course such minor detalis such as developing frames, suspension, tyres, etc etc and it all becomes prohibitive. Goto, the man who designed the sauber engine, estimates that a two-man team requires no less than 40 engines over a season: two per GP, plus eight for test sessions. Compare that to the number of engines required using NSRs: six for a two-man team.
Forget private teams, what about the factories? Take Ducati. Their annual net profit is, according to their own figures, $ 10 million. But developing the new GP bike will cost them $ 30 million initially, plus another 10 million annually to actually race it. How long do YOU think Ducati will be able to afford this?
Sponsors will cough up the cash, it is said. That's funny. Everybody has been complaining about the difficulty of finding sponsors when racing NSRs or YZRs. Even a highly respected team boss like Erv Kanemoto found it extremely difficult to find the necessary money. Racing four-strokes will require three to perhaps even seven times the money that two-strokes do. Why should sponsors suddenly want to cough up those sums? I have not heard even ONE sensible explanation why they should. And if the results of the negotiations between Repsol and HRC, and later Aprilia are any indication, they won't.
Kevin Cameron, "Cycle World's" tech editor, spoke to several people at daytona about this. The general feeling was that the whole idea will collapse within three to four years.
In the end, only Honda and possibly Yamaha can afford this long-term.
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