MotoGP 2003 - Round 7 - Assen

Less than five weeks after it ran for the first time ever at a race-track, the radical new four-stroke Proton KR V5 is ready for the next stage in a fast-forward development programme – the challenge of one of the hardest and fastest circuits of the year.

The exciting and raucous V5 has already shown clear potential, even though barely past the stage of first shake-down tests. The team hope that Dutch TT at Assen will mark another step forward for the youngest GP machine on the grids.

The compact and boldly innovative V5 took to the track for the first time in practice for the French GP at Le Mans on May 23.

The first race was a fortnight later, in Mugello in Italy. Both riders qualified, and although Nobuatsu Aoki suffered fuel pump problems, McWilliams had moved up into the points before he too pitted for the same reason.

The second race was at Catalunya a week later. McWilliams was the innocent victim of a first-lap pile-up, but Aoki achieved the machine’s first finish, in 16th, just out of the points.

Assen gives riders and team two new targets. The first is to get both bikes to the finish line. The second is to prove strong enough even in first rough prototype form to claim its first championship points for a top 15 result.

Assen will see Proton KR V5 numbers boosted by one – with four bikes at the northern Dutch circuit, each rider will have a spare machine. Previously, only three were in existence. As team owner Kenny Roberts explained: “We need to see if we wanted to make chassis changes before we commissioned any more.”

There will also be a fresh round of updates: just as many of them as the team can get to the track. With work going on almost round the clock, new parts and systems are under constant development. A week before the race, team manager Chuck Aksland was unable to predict exactly what they would have ready in time.

“The engine is on the dyno at the moment, and we’re working on a range of parts that will make more power. But time is against us. We aren’t sure what we will have at the track,” said Aksland.

“We seem to have the fuel pump problem under control. You have to deal with these things step by step.” As well as the engine, engineers were making new suspension parts at the team’s impressive Banbury development and manufacturing base in England.

“It’s hard to say how the new bike will go at Assen,” continued Aksland. “Having four bikes will help us develop a rhythm in the pits, but track performance is difficult to predict.

“The track is very flowing. Our chassis seems to be in the ballpark for handling, and we’ve done more work on that since the last race. On the other hand, a lot depends on having the right gearing to get the most out of the corner combinations. We’re still waiting for some alternative gearbox ratios, although with the broader rev range and power band the four-stroke might not be so sensitive.

Jeremy has always gone well at Assen (he claimed his first GP win in the 250 class at the Dutch classic in 2001). For us, as long as we’re better than we were at the last race, and we can get two bikes to the finish, that will be another step,” Aksland concluded.

The Dutch TT is the seventh of 16 World Championship rounds, taking place on Saturday, June 28. The next race is the Proton team’s home GP, the British round at Donington Park.

McWilliams - "I can’t wait for this race … I’m as excited about going to Assen as I have ever been, and I love the track. I know the team has been working round the clock, and I haven’t been disturbing them. I hope everything’s going to plan, and we have new things to try. There are some very positive tests coming up, but unfortunately not until after Assen. I think the bike will perform okay at Assen. I was having a little difficulty making it react as fast as I want, but we learned a lot at Catalunya, so that should be better for this race."

Aoki - "This bike is still very new. It’s amazing just how much has already been done in a short time, but there is still a long way to go. We have to think about development first before we can think about racing. All the same, it was a really good feeling getting to the finish at Catalunya. The bike wasn’t running perfectly, but it was still running consistently and strongly. We need to keep making it better."