12 January 2008, BY Henny Ray Abrams, CycleNews.com
Team Roberts was dealt a setback to its 2008 MotoGP plans with the announcement that Ducati would not be able to supply the Britain-based team.
Claudio Domenicali, Ducati Corse CEO and Ducati Motor Holding Product Director, said at this week’s Marlboro Ducati team intro in Italy that time had run out on providing Team Roberts with engines or complete machines for 2008. The news was first reported on the Italian website motograndprix.it.
Team owner Kenny Roberts, reached on his cell phone in Los Angeles on Saturday morning, downplayed the report, saying that he hadn’t had serious discussions with Ducati pending the completion of a complex sponsorship agreement to expand the involvement of 2007 sponsors F1 MAX-X and MGM's Treasure Island Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. That agreement, which is said to be part of a larger scheme that includes sponsoring two car racing teams, has been in the works since the late in the season. Negotiations are ongoing, Roberts said, with no fixed date for resolution.
“It’s all going very well, just not going as fast as we may need it for ’08,” Roberts said when reached on his cell phone in Los Angeles on Saturday morning.
As for Ducati, Roberts said, “We haven’t officially spoken to them because we have nothing to speak about yet. We don’t know that they won’t, we don’t know that they will, but until we get the sponsorship there’s really no point in talking about whether they’ll supply us or not. No sense bothering now.
“If we don’t get supplied, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have the sponsorship. If you have the sponsorship and then you can’t get supplied, yeah, there would be a problem then. Right now we don’t have a problem either way.”
There is a problem without Ducati since Roberts has previously been turned down by the other MotoGP teams. In 2007 the team fitted the Team Roberts’ chassis with leased Honda RC212V engines, but with dismal results. Without much-needed upgrades, the package was uncompetitive for most of the season.
“There’s actually no motor supply,” Roberts said when asked if there was an alternative to Ducati. “Even the Honda, in my opinion for what we’re putting together, is not a viable deal anyway. So it’s first things first. Sponsorship is the main thing which has been lacking in recent years. And there’s no other alternative than just to find the sponsorship. With sponsorship everything can happen. It may take time; everything can happen. Without sponsorship you don’t have to worry about time.”
The team will certainly miss pre-season testing, which begins in just over a week in Sepang, Malaysia, and the delay puts their participation in the first race in jeopardy.
“If we’re at the first race, we’re at the first race, if we’re not, we’re not,” Roberts said. “Supply is a problem in all racing at the moment for a number of reasons, so it’s not just MotoGP, it’s everywhere. We’ll just tackle one problem at a time.
“If we don’t make ’08, we don’t make ’08,” he added, but he hadn’t ruled out joining the championship in mid-season. “We’re not throwing anything off the table yet.”
Without sponsorship or machinery there was no point discussing tires, though he said that “the tire thing is straightening out a little bit. It looks like the teams are either with Bridgestone or Michelin and that competition seems to straighten out the supply problem there. That’s not as big a problem as it was two or three years ago.”
And without sponsorship, machinery, or tires, riders aren’t an issue. Both of his sons, Kenny Jr. and Kurtis, rode for the team in 2007. Kenny started the season before giving way to Kurtis later in the year. Kenny Roberts wasn’t sure where or if his sons would be racing in 2008. Kenny Jr. has taken up rock climbing and Kurtis has been training at the family ranch in Hickman, Calif., Roberts said.
“I know that they’re not out of training but they’re not training every day,” he said. “I’ve seen Kurtis out there riding, so I know that he’s riding.” And he has no preference for where he’d want to race.
“I think he’s more or less open for anything that makes sense. Obviously, the racing in America, that’s kind of hard at the moment. I’m not sure how all that’s going to pan out.”
Latest News