The Moto2 category is by far the most regulated of the Grands Prix; single engine, single electronics, single gasoline and single oil. All that remains is the cycle parts so that engineers can give free rein to their inventive spirit and measure themselves against the competition.
But if we saw a proliferation of chassis in the years 2010/2012, it is clear that Kalex is today not far from imposing a sort of monopoly, with the excesses that this entails and which we are going to talk about …
Why the Kalex hegemony and what are the abuses?
At the birth of the category, in 2010, making a Moto2 chassis was not very complicated; it was enough to take the dimensions of the Honda frame and transpose them, either on frames machined from the mass, or on tubular frames, in aluminum or steel…
Many of them have tried it, and perhaps the following names still mean something to you; ICP, Force 210, AJR, FTR, Harris, Moriwaki, TSR, MZ, Inmotec, Arbizu, RSV, MG Competition, Suter, etc.
Unfortunately, four years later, only three manufacturers remain in the running, Tech3, SpeedUp and Kalex with a virtual monopoly of the latter.
Suter, despite being world champion with Marc Marquez, also disappeared from the 2016 starting grid. The Swiss manufacturer partly paid for its total involvement with the young Spanish prodigy. Developing his chassis above all for the latter, Suter therefore went ever further to respond to the ever later corner entries of the number 93. The result was certainly a world champion chassis but one which the other drivers grew tired of, preferring him little by little the German Kalex, both more homogeneous and more constant whatever the circuit.
Little by little, we found the same quasi-monopoly situation that we had at the time of the 2-stroke with Aprilia, with all its perverse effects.
At the forefront of these, the fashion effect; all pilots now want a Kalex, whether they are fine blades or second knives. Obviously, the former are served first and the latter last, if at all.
To SpeedUp et Tech3, it is very difficult to attract drivers capable of competing in the Top 10 regularly in the dry, to such an extent that the French team, after 7 years of effort, is now wondering about a possible move to the manufacturer German, to the great despair ofHervé Poncharal: “We had a victory with Takahashi and several podiums over the first three years. But since then, it's difficult and we're wondering if it wouldn't be more worth it to buy Kalex like everyone else, in which case we would have a much wider choice of drivers. We are in a phase of reflection but it would really be death in the soul and a sort of admission of failure, the fact that we cannot find people ready to take on challenges and fight in this standardized category. Ktm will arrive in Moto2 and it will be very good for the championship because it will regenerate a little diversity, with their tubular chassis like in Moto3 and MotoGP. »
SpeedUp, which fields 3 motorcycles, or 50% more than Tech3, and therefore collects more data than the French manufacturer, is doing a bit better, both in terms of riders and results, since everything is linked. At least for the moment…
Faced with these two courageous artisans, and especially since the (temporary?) elimination of Suter, Kalex takes full advantage of its quasi-monopoly position; extremely limited development, barely enough to sell new chassis at least every year (As a reminder, Johann Zarco was world champion by crushing the category using an “old” 2014 chassis), ban on modifying anything on the motorcycle, including carbon bodywork elements, and even a ban on using copies of the latter... Original parts are mandatory, with the resulting price, exactly as with Aprilia in 125 and 250cc.
History repeats itself, and Kalex should remember it, because clouds are already appearing on the horizon in the Germanic sky...
To be continued.
