A little over a month ago, we wrote that the Mahindra tiger showed its teeth but from afar, thereby meaning that all the new features that we are sharing with you exclusively had not yet been proven in the field.
Unfortunately, this distance is currently confirmed and may even continue for a while, since the brand new engine of these Swiss-Indian machines is proving disappointing. Very disappointing, even, to the point of causing strong discontent in all the teams that have it.
This is not (yet) reflected in press releases, where we always talk about improvements to be found and progress to be made, but the facts are there; the 2016 engine noticeably lacks power and the gearbox is rock-solid reliable.
Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin for the official Aspar team, Stefano Manzi and Stefano Valtulini for the 3570 Team Italia team, Tatsuki Suzuki and Fabio Spinarelli for the CIP-Unicom Starker team, Karel Hanika and Darryn Binder for the Platinum Bay Real Estate team, as well as finally Alexis Masbou and John Mc Phee on the “Peugeots” of the Peugeot MC Saxoprint team defend the colors of the Indian industrialist thanks to machines designed at Suter in Switzerland, and are therefore concerned.
The teams are trying to organize themselves to make Mahindra face its responsibilities, but speaking with a single voice is proving difficult, since certain teams have equipment at preferential conditions.
In addition, the 2016 engines are now frozen for a moment and we therefore unfortunately risk soon witnessing a Honda/Ktm duel again, the two brands having also provided significantly improved 2016 models.
