Use of the Petronas bike in the Superbike World Championship by Carl Fogarty's team was the most adventurous and amateurish project that has ever occurred in the history of this World Championship category created in 1988. The outcome after this short episode with the 900 cc three-cylinder bike designed and built in Switzerland was just as desolate. The cost-benefit ratio was worrisome after four years (2003 to 2006) and the points yielded were compared with the exorbitant budgets invested.
Even just the curious topic of why the three-cylinder Petronas riders had to race for four years with a 900 cc against the overpowering 1000 cc four-cylinder from Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki and against the 1200 cc twin-cylinder from Ducati, is very explosive. This is proof of Petronas' amateurism and how the FIM is notoriously clueless.
Let us first briefly look at the beginning of the Petronas three-cylinder project. Originally, Petronas - the Malaysian state-owned petrol giant that had entered the Formula 1 early on with the Swiss Sauber team as its main sponsor - contracted the Sauber subsidiary, Sauber Petronas Engineering, in Hinwil (Switzerland) in order to build competitive 990 cc engines for the new MotoGP four-stroke class created in 2002. Honda's and Ferrari's F1 former engineer, Osamu Goto, acted as Technical Director at SPE and planned to offer these MotoGP engines for sale to interested factories or private teams.
Firstly, however, Goto had zero know-how when it came to motorcycle racing technology. That's why he brought on board former GP rider Eskil Suter as an advisor. He had worked with the German designer, Ing. Joerg Moeller, based in Pesaro (Italy), during his active 250 cc career (Moeller built successful racing machines from 125 to 250 and 350 to 500 cc for Morbidelli, MBA, Minarelli and Parisienne) and later worked in a small workshop in Suter’s parents' house in Turbenthal with Eskil's brother Simon and two British mechanics.
But Suter soon ended his collaboration with Goto and Sauber Petronas Engineering because his pragmatic approach wasn't particularly in demand at SPE in Hinwil, and his sensible ideas fell on deaf ears with the Japanese technical director.
"Every time I visited Goto in Hinwil, I noticed that the engine had become a few centimeters higher again," Eskil Suter had explained at the time.
I had suspected that, with a small amount of irony that's usually not my thing: "With the Petronas engine, you'll probably never be able to take part in the MotoGP races in Suzuka and Motegi because the bike with that engine will get stuck in the tunnels."
In fact, no factory or private team was interested in this engine. So the Sauber-Petronas team had a chassis built by Harris in England that hadn't undergone any technical development in almost a decade.
That's why interest in Niall Mackenzie's two demonstration laps on Thursday at the 2002 Sepang GP left a lot to be desired. Jeremy Burgess, legendary crew chief for Mick Doohan and Valentino Rossi, didn't even bother to walk the 20 meters from the Honda garage to the pit wall to have a look. "When I heard that Petronas had commissioned the chassis from Harris, I knew that this couldn't be a serious project," Burgess told me at Sepang in 2002.
At the following press conference, Goto announced that he was looking for parties interested in this engine. However, he didn't want to reveal what costs a factory or team would pay for an engine package per season.
At the time, I asked Carlo Pernat - who, in 2002, also had a business card with the inscription "Consultant for Gilera" - to reveal this secret in a one-on-one conversation with Goto. Carletto gave me his answer after a few minutes: "Six million US Dollars."
However, in 2002, the total annual budget of a two-rider MotoGP team like Red Bull Yamaha WCM in 2002 was only 6.5 million USD.
At the time, I wrote a critical two-page story for the weekly magazine, Motorsport aktuell, which made it very clear that this 990 cc engine would never see a GP paddock up close again.
This resulted in two telephone conversations. The first one the following Sunday at 11 a.m. came from Formula 1 team owner Peter Sauber and lasted 34 minutes.
The former racing driver, sports car team owner, and Mercedes partner in Formula 1 railed against my devastating story, but he couldn't refute a single line with technical arguments.
Durnig the conversation, Peter Sauber emphasized: "I'm not a motorcycle expert, and I don't want to be one.“
My counter question was: "Did you also tell Petronas that, before you signed the contract for this MotoGP engine, which brought you a development budget of 15 million US Dollars?"
The answer got lost in the commotion.
Then Osamu Goto spoke up and suggested we have lunch together in a decent restaurant in Wetzikon. My office was less than 10 km from that meeting point. The Sauber headquarters in Hinwil was also nearby.
Goto turned out to be quite clueless. He had clearly not done his homework before starting the MotoGP project.
When I told him that, on the Hockenheimring, a Formula 1 engine is used at full throttle for around 70% of the lap time while, on winding tracks, like Shah Alam, a MotoGP engine only runs at full throttle for 7% of the lap, he didn't believe a word of it at first.
In fact, he had assumed that the conditions were the same as in Formula 1 and had calculated that a MotoGP team with two riders would use around 60 to 70 engines per season.
At the time, Aprilia Racing Director, Jan Witteveen, had told me that he had made it through the 2002 season with six engines for the one-man team with Régis Laconi on the three-cylinder Cube.
This explains the absurdly high engine budget that Goto had demanded from Carlo Pernat after his request.
Things soon went quiet again about Petronas' 15 million USD MotoGP engine project. But, at the same time, consideration was given to whether the three-cylinder could be used in the Superbike World Championship.
Osamu Goto, however, was unable to produce the 150 engines required for a SBK homologation in time for the start of the 2003 season. Nevertheless, plans for a switch to the SBK soon took shape. Four-time Superbike World Champion Carl "Foggy" Fogarty was to act as figurehead and team manager. And Australian Rob Phillis - who had good contacts with Petronas through his appearances in the Malaysian Superbike Championship - brought Eskil Suter and his modest company, Suter Engineering, into play as a possible engine manufacturer. Suter promised to meet the homologation requirements so quickly that the Foggy team would be ready to go by the start of the 2003 SBK season.
But Suter's capacities were far from sufficient. Petronas had to postpone the debut to mid-season in the 2003 SBK World Championship. The contract didn't include a penalty for late delivery, and Suter snickered at his million-Euro deal.
As early as the winter of 2002/2003, Fogarty announced euphoric season goals in English sector magazines. He announced that the FP1 engine developed by Goto would produce 250 hp. This would have crushed all the competition at the time, since the most powerful SBK engines in 2003 produced between 180 and 190 hp.
In addition, the displacement had to be reduced to 900 cc for SBK homologation.
Goto had promised an output of just under 200 hp for the 990 cc version. Fogarty, therefore, indulged in the illusion that, if the engine were reduced by 90 cc, he could miraculously gain 50 hp.
This would've been a unique engineering masterpiece in the history of the combustion engine.
Attentive readers will also remember that new SBK technical regulations came into force in 2003, which increased the displacement for the four-cylinder engines from 750 to 1000 cc and that of the twins from 1000 cc.
For the three-cylinder bikes, however, the displacement remained at 900 cc, like in 2002 and the years before.
Why?
The explanation for this strange situation was provided by the German, Harald Eckl, then owner of the Kawasaki factory team for SBK and SSP. "At the decisive meeting of the Motorcycle Sports Manufacturer's Association, MSMA, there was no representative from Petronas, because this new manufacturer wasn't a member of the MSMA. Of course, I noticed this inconsistency with the 900 cc. But I attended the meeting as a Kawasaki delegate, not for Petronas. That's why I kept my mouth shut, like all my Japanese colleagues and the representatives from Ducati and Aprilia."
Because of the displacement handicap, the Foggy Petronas Racing Team's success with the FP1 was limited for three and a half years, even though the exorbitant sum of 52 million Euros was squandered.
The Petronas project had nothing to do with the spirit of the technical regulations for SBK bikes anyway. The engines had short-lived gearboxes from the Swiss 500 cc sidecar two-stroke racing engines, which would have been completely unusable in everyday traffic. The water cooling system, designed for full throttle on the race track, would have collapsed at the second red light in city traffic in midsummer, at the latest.
The Petronas PF1 was approved for SBK, although not a single bike for sale was ever seen at a dealer. There had never been a dealer for this vehicle anyway.
It's also safe to say that the required number of 150 units was never actually built. It was revealed that 75 bikes were ordered from MSX International in Basildon, Essex. The Modenas company in Malaysia was supposed to build the other 75 units by July 2003. They were never seen.
The three-cylinder FP1 bikes produced for road use were thought to be untraceable for years. They said they had been shipped from England to Malaysia and scrapped there. But, in February 2010, a collection of around 60 half-finished bikes was discovered in a storage room in England.
It's a known secret that the FIM officials were happy to turn a blind eye to the SBK homologation process, in order to allow new manufacturers (such as Bimota, Benelli etc.) to enter the SBK, much to the delight of SBK promoter Flammini.
The fact that Foggy Petronas achieved some respectable successes in the first two years was primarily due to the fact that the four Japanese factories had significantly reduced their SBK involvement at the time.
Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta was annoyed for years by the FIM's strange homologation methods and was astonished by some of Flammini's machinations.
That's why Carmelo Ezpeleta insisted on being one of the first interested parties to sign a binding purchasing agreement for the Petronas three-cylinder road FP1.
Good old Carmelo has since been able to devote a lot of free time to improving his golf handicap, since the delivery of the 900 cc Petronas machine is still pending.
FOGGY Petronas Superbike Statistics
Race starts: 93
Engaged in SBK from 2003 in Valencia to 2006 in Magny-Cours
Pole Positions
2004: Oschersleben/1 with Troy Corser
2004: Magny-Cours/1 with Troy Corser )
Podium Places
2004: Valencia/1 with Chris Walker (3rd place)
2004: Misano/1 with Troy Corser (2nd place)
First row: 7x
Race led: 1x 1
Laps led: 14
Points earned in the Constructors Championship: 385
Points earned in the Riders Championship: 465
Final World Championship result 2003 (118 points)
Final World Championship result 2004 (200 points)
Final World Championship result 2005 (48 points)
Final World Championship result 2006 (19 points)
Foggy PETRONAS Racing Riders
2003
Troy Corser (107 points)
James Haydon (12 points)
Lorenzo Mauri (0 points)
2004
Troy Corser (146 points)
Chris Walker (128 points)
2005
Garry McCoy (15 points)
Andi Notman (0 points)
Steve Martin (35 points)
2006
Craig Jones (3 points)
Steve Martin (19 points)