Mahindra presented its new MGP3O motorcycle last week in India, and it concerns no less than 10 riders from the 2016 Moto3 field.
Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin for the official Aspar team, Stefano Manzi and Stefano Valtulini for the MTA Italia team, Tatsuki Suzuki and Fabio Spinarelli for the CIP- Unicom Starker team, Karel Hanika and Darryn Binder for the Outbox Reset Drink team, and finally Alexis Masbou and John Mc Phee on the “Peugeots” of the SPRacing Peugeot team will indeed defend the colors of the Indian industrialist thanks to machines designed at Suter in Switzerland.
Technically, we can consider that the 2016 model is no longer an evolution of the previous model at all, as there are so many changes; new frame with modified rigidity, new cylinder head with a valve exhaust outlet opening onto two exhaust pipes, like on the KTMs, new engine with modified bore/stroke ratio, new aerodynamics, in particular of the inlet air in the fork crown and air box, new tank, new saddle, new gear selection linkage, etc.
Obviously, so many new features often result in extremely tight timing before definitively validating which engine configuration will be available for all teams from the first Grand Prix.
It actually seems that this is the case at Mahindra and no Swiss-Italian-Indian machine is expected in the private tests which start today in Valencia...
Last year, the first Mahindra in the World Championship was that of Francesco Bagnaia, in 14th position. This year, the objectives are significantly raised.
