Moto GP

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History and Background

The Moto GP is actually officially the FIM Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix series. It first began in 1949, just before Formula One. The rider with the most wins is Giacomo Agostini with 15 titles during his career.

There have always been categories for 125cc, 250cc, and 500cc. Other categories have come and gone over the years, depending on the popularity of various models. In 2002, 500cc opened up to include 990cc motorcycles as well and is currently being dominated by the larger 4-stroke machines.

Kawasaki GP Racing

In more recent years Kawasaki has been better known as a Superbike entrant but the manufacturer has 87 GP victories to its name, over half of them in the 250cc class, and has won nine World Championship riders titles between 1969 and 1982. Their two 500cc race wins date back to the early 1970s.

After more than 20 years away from GP racing, Kawasaki launched their new four-stroke 990cc machine, the Ninja ZX-RR during the 2002 season. Things didn't start well for the machine with former WSB rider Akira Yanagawa crashing and injuring himself in the Ninja's first race of the season. GP rookie Andrew Pitt replaced the Japanese rider and collected some points in the final race of the year.

The 2003 season wasnt overly successful for the Green Team. Pitt was joined by new teammate and fellow Australian Garry Mc Coy who'd moved from the Red Bull Yamaha Moto GP squad. Both riders struggled to finish anywhere near the top 10 with Mc Coy managing 9th in the French GP. German Alex Hoffman was signed as a test rider but also had a couple of races finishing 10th in Assen. Yanagawa was also on test-duty due to still not being race-fit.

For the MotoGP2004 season Shinya Nakano joins Alex Hofmann as principal riders in the team. In August a number of crankshaft and cylinder head mods were made with Yanagawa performing testing. The team alse tested new fuel injection components and chassis settings after the disapointing Porutgal results.

See Also:

• Official Moto GP Site
• Fuchs Kawasaki
• Motorcycle Daily Article
• MCNEWS Article
• ZXRR Test Ride

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