At the motorcycle GP in Spielberg, Italian rider, Alessandro "Alex" Giussani, Chief Technical Officer of Suter Industries AG in Turbenthal (Switzerland), and Sales Director Lars Jäger once again took a look around the GP paddock. They want to get back into business after having taken a few years off, preferably in the new Moto3 class, which is scheduled to be launched in 2028 as a one-make series with production racers, featuring 700 to 780 cc, twin-cylinder engines, weighing 120 kg, and an engine output of approximately 90 hp. The total price for the vehicle will probably be €50,000 Euros.
Let's remember that Suter Technology won the Constructors World Championship in the Moto2 class three times in a row as a chassis manufacturer in 2010, 2011, and 2012, as well as the Riders World Championship in 2012 with Marc Márquez. In total, the Suter MMX2 won no fewer than 32 Moto2 World Championship races between 2010 and 2014. The Swiss company also first built the Suter Honda for the 250cc Moto3 World Championship class in 2012 and then factory bikes for Mahindra and Peugeot. For Danilo Petrucci and Lukas Pesek, Suter also produced the chassis for IodaRacing's MotoGP Claiming Rules bikes in 2012, which were equipped with BMW's powerful Superbike S1000RR racing engines. However, Suter's hopes of participating in a BMW MotoGP Factory Team as a chassis supplier partner with the Bavarians were not fulfilled.
Before entering the GP world and opening the modern facility in Turbenthal, the head of the company, Eskil Suter, had already assisted the neighboring company, Sauber Petronas Engineering in Hinwil, on the development of the 990 cc three-cylinder in-line engine designed by former F1 Honda and Ferrari designer Osamu Goto. Nevertheless, after its completion in 2002, the engine failed to find a buyer in the new four-stroke World Championship.
Petronas then came up with the idea of reducing the displacement to 900 cc and competing in the Superbike World Championship in the first year of the 1000 cc four-cylinder engine with the Petronas-Foggy team. Suter then started to produce the 150 units required for SBK World Championship homologation from January to July 2003, in collaboration with Modenas. Curiously, even though the four-cylinder engines were allowed to race at 1000 cc and the two-cylinder engines even at 1200 cc, the Petronas FP1 achieved two podium finishes in 2004. The riders were Troy Corser and James Haydon in 2003, Chris Walker who replaced Haydon in 2004, and later Noriyuki Haga and Craig Jones in 2005.
In 2015, Suter's designer, Alex Giussani, an all-around technician who has developed and built competitive racing engines, transmissions, and rolling chassis, developed the MMX500 Production Racer with a 560 cc V4 engine for two-stroke and racing-for-fun enthusiasts. The racer was a 195 hp machine at a cost of €.120,000 Euros, and production was limited to 100 units. In 2016, a Suter Factory Team competed with it in the Senior TT on the Isle of Man with Ian Lougher.
In 1991, company founder and former racer, Eskil Suter, had finished second in the 250cc European Championship behind Max Biaggi. In 1996, the Swiss rider achieved his best GP result, 5th place at Assen, on a 250 cc Aprilia. In 1998, Suter replaced an injured Doriano Romboni in five Grand Prix races on the MuZ-Weber 500, powered by the Swissauto 500cc V4 engine built by Urs Wenger.
In 2016, Suter Racing Technology was renamed Suter Industries AG, since its business activities had long since extended beyond racing. The expertise it acquired in engine development since 2002 was implemented to other areas of application in the automotive, aviation, and defense industries. In collaboration with renowned manufacturers, they developed and manufactured prototypes, drive systems, concept vehicles, engines, motorcycles, clutch systems, and individual parts all in-house. In the meantime, the production and testing facility in Turbenthal, Switzerland, had been being built and expanded.
In fact, Suter Industries AG had already completed orders for various motorcycle manufacturers and, in 2012, it was represented in all three World Championship GP classes simultaneously with its Swiss built GP bikes. At the time, only Honda could claim that.
In this context, it is worth mentioning that motor racing circuits have been banned in Switzerland since the Le Mans sportscar tragedy of 1955! Only hill climb races and motocross events can be staged in Switzerland since then.
Until 2017, Suter Industries also built the aluminium chassis for the Ducati Desmosedici and later the first steel chassis for the Forward Racing MV Agusta Moto2 team. After that order, the Swiss engineering company withdrew from the not-so-lucrative GP business where financially weak teams repeatedly failed to pay for the materials.
From then on, Suter Industries continued to design and manufacture high-tech components for various companies in the automotive industry. Its most prominent customer was 61-year-old Keanu Reeves, who offers motorcycles with high-displacement V-twin engines through his own motorcycle company, "Arch Motorcycle". His company has been supplied with components from Suter Industries in Turbenthal since 2017. Former racer, Eskil Suter - who has welcomed Reeves to Turbenthal several times - is still CEO of the company.
Suter Industries AG could envision supplying rolling chassis for the 2028 one-make Moto3 World Championship to a Chinese company such as CFMOTO or QJ Motor. "The new Moto3 World Championship would be very appealing to us," Alex Giussani explained in an interview with GPOne.com. "After a creative break, we'd like to use GP racing again as an image platform for Suter Industries to prove that Switzerland, as a location in the heart of Europe, can also play a role in technological leadership."