V-5 Honda powered Moriwaki machines for Red-Bull

Australia's three-time 500cc grand prix winner Garry McCoy will join Italian ace Valentino Rossi as a Honda V5-powered rider in the 2003
MotoGP world championship.

The Honda V5 motor is the dominant powerplant in MotoGP, having carried Rossi to eight victories this season under the new 990cc, four-stroke prototype regulations.

Honda Racing Corporation president Mr Suguru Kanazawa has confirmed that Honda V5 motors will be supplied to the famous specialist Japanese chassis builder Moriwaki for the 2003 season.

In turn the Moriwaki-Honda V5 machines will be exclusively supplied to and raced by the Red Bull WCM team, which recently extended McCoy's contract for 2003.

"Moriwaki is building a chassis and we have a contract to begin supplying them with test engines," said Kanazawa during a Honda press conference at the Brno circuit following first qualifying for Sunday's Czech Republic Grand Prix.

Later WCM team manager Peter Clifford said: "We now have an agreement in place with Moriwaki, we know what bikes we are racing next year."

Patriach of the Moriwaki company is the famed international racing figure Mamoru Moriwaki, who is the man largely credited with supplying the race winning four-stroke bikes that launched the international career of Australia's 1987 world champion Wayne Gardner.

For the past three and half years McCoy has ridden factory Yamaha 500c two-strokes bikes for Red Bull WCM but these have proved uncompetitive this year against the power of the new era four-strokes.

During mid-season speculation several weeks ago McCoy said he "would be pretty happy" if the Moriwaki-Honda V5 option was confirmed for 2003, as it now has been by the HRC president.

In company with most other leading MotoGP riders, McCoy has made it clear that Honda V5 power has put Rossi in an enviable position this season - with the young Italian certain of clinching a second consecutive world championship.

Rossi won eight of the first nine races this year on a Honda V5, with the only other victory going to his teammate Tohru Ukawa on a similar machine. The good news for McCoy from Honda and his own team boss came at the end of the day that he qualified an impressive seventh, just .4s off the front row, for Sunday's Czech Republic Grand Prix, the 10th round of the Moto GP championship.

At the Honda press announcement Kanazawa also confirmed that Rossi has again signed for the Honda for 2003 and will be joined by Japan's Daijiro Kato and Tohru Ukawa on factory Honda V5 machines next year. Honda also said it has the capacity to supply up to another five riders with Honda V5s, depending on final requests from teams before a mid-September deadline for 2003 production requirements.