PROTON TEAM KR

YEARS RACING 18
EMPLOYEES 45
PRINCIPAL KENNY ROBERTS
GENERAL MANAGER CHUCK AKSLAND
MOTORCYCLE PROTON V5
RIDERS NOBUATSU AOKI

The only truly independent manufacturer in MotoGP racing, modelled on parallel facilities for F1, is unique in its capacity to design, construct and develop a motorcycle from the ground up … and then to take it racing.
GP Motorsports UK grew from the dominant Team Roberts in 1996, fielding its first motorcycle in 1997, and growing both in size and strength in the intervening years.
The four-stroke project has brought great changes at the Banbury base, with engineering staff almost doubled, and testing facilities likewise. At the same time, the manufacturing base is at the cutting edge of the latest techniques.
Proton Team KR retains the riders who made a big impression on the series last year – Ulsterman Jeremy McWilliams and Japan’s Nobuatsu Aoki. “They did a hell of a job, and I’m pleased they’ve both stayed to develop the new bike,” said Roberts.
The track team has a a familiar line-up of specialist race engineers and mechanics in the pits, their numbers boosted by new four-stroke specialists.
New to the team is renowned F1 engineer John Barnard, whose distinguished portfolio includes signal triumphs with Ferrari and McLaren in F1. “John brings a new and different way of looking at motorcycles, as well as a perfectionist approach,” said Roberts, who believes that F1 technology has a vital role to play in pushing motorcycle development forward.
The team will again use Bridgestone tyres. Last year Proton Team KR gave the Japanese tyre company a strong debut season including a pole position. This year they return for their second season in the top class.
Kenny Roberts has come a long way since he earned the nickname “King Kenny” back in the Eighties, after storming to three 500cc World Championship titles in a row.
The 52-year-old Californian from Modesto, inland from San Francisco, had already conquered the US dirt-tracks, and won the 500cc World Championship three times straight, before returning as a team owner, running the successful factory Yamahas.
In 1996 King Kenny set up as a racing manufacturer on his own account. He founded the GP Motorsports UK Corporation to build a truly independent Grand Prix challenger.
Over the next seven years, the KR3 challenged the might of the big factories. At the same time, Roberts was creating a unique top-level engineering facility – dedicated to motorcycle racing.
Superbly equipped and generously staffed, Kenny’s firm in Banbury (in the heart of England’s famous “Formula One Belt”) combines design, engineering and manufacturing under one roof. It is the complete motorcycle racing firm.
Roberts had a vital partner in this impressive progress. The man with the American Eagle as his motif found a kindred spirit in Proton Cars, whose symbol is the Malaysian tiger.
The Proton KR3 had its best season last year, with fastest-ever two-stroke laps at two circuits, pole position in Australia, and a string of top-ten finishes for new riders Jeremy McWilliams and Nobuatsu Aoki.
By then, the new-generation 990cc four-stroke prototypes had arrived under revised MotoGP rules. The bigger bikes swamped the two-strokes with sheer horsepower.
There was just one choice for the partnership of maverick racing legend and the ambitious car company. To take on the big motorcycle factories head-on once again.
Redoubling the strength of the Banbury design, engineering and manufacturing base, including a significant influx of F1 engineers, Roberts and Proton committed to building a brand-new racing challenger. Using the car company’s engineering resources for prototyping work, and operating closely with famed British racing name Lotus, they conceived a MotoGP four-stroke of their own.
The result is both ambitious and innovative – a radical and powerful 990cc V5 engine housed in a compact high-technology chassis. It marries well over 200 horsepower to the legendary handling of the Proton chassis. The honeymoon will be in the full public gaze, in the pitiless faster-than-ever MotoGP World Championship season.
The overall goal is for the future. Kenny Roberts explains.
“It’s going to be a difficult year. We’re not in race mode –we are in engineering mode, developing something completely new. It’s always a struggle – but we’re looking further down the track, and it looks good for the future.
“There was always the chance we would run the two-stroke in the early part of the season,” continued Roberts. “Until we’re confident that the four-stroke is in full race trim, we won’t put it on the track.
“This is a war, not a battle.”

[Modificato da offalcon 09/11/2003 8.40]

BORN DECEMBER 31, 1951
RESIDENCE MODESTO, CALIFORNIA ANDA STIGES, SPAIN
MARITAL STATUS SINGLE 2 BOYS AND 1 GIRL
GP VICTORIES 24, (22, 500cc - 2, 250cc)
1ST GP VICTORY VENEZUELA 1978 250cc

Kenny Roberts has been a major figure in Grand Prix racing since he arrived as an aggressive 27-year-old in 1978.
The kid from Modesto had already conquered US racing, taking the AMA Grand National championship twice, battling the Harley-Davidsons on the oval dirt tracks on a maverick new Yamaha. And he had risen to the top of US road racing, showing the same devastating combination of intelligent analysis and fearsome aggression on tarmac.
In his first Grand Prix year, he captured the attention of the fans by deposing reigning champion Barry Sheene at the first attempt in 1978, and defended the title successfully for the next two years straight.
His last season, in 1983, was an epic battle with new young American Freddie Spencer. Roberts lost by just two points.
After retirement, he returned as a new kind of team owner, and after taking over the factory Yamaha team he built up a formidable force. Team Roberts captured the premier 500cc title three times straight with Kenny’s protégé Wayne Rainey from 1990 to 1992, and the 250 title with John Kocinski in 1990.
There was one major frustration. Kenny had a team of engineers capable of taking a racing machine and developing it still further, but their hands were tied by having to rely on the Yamaha factory race department for all design and development work.
This was the spur to Kenny’s boldest move in a career of high adventure. He established his own independent research and development facility and manufacturing base … and tackled the Japanese factories head on with a bike designed and built independently from his base in England.
The seven years of the Proton KR3 lightweight two-stroke were hard but valuable – both from the lessons learned, and the strength gained by Kenny’s unique motorcycle racing design, engineering and manufacturing base.
The four-stroke is the next bold step – a greater financial and engineering commitment, and a brave promise to the future.
Kenny Roberts and the new Proton KR V5 are still taking the fight to the factories.

TOM O'KANE
IRELAND, JULY 21, 1964
A stalwart from the Team Roberts days with Yamaha, Tom has lived out his ambition with the team, joining as a probationary electronics expert in 1988, and now heading race engineering as well as acting as chief engineer for Jeremy McWilliams’s 2002 squad.
O’Kane, now 37, was still studying electronics engineering at Dublin City University, when he first contacted the team offering his services. The timing was good, with Roberts planning to introduce pioneering on-bike data-gathering telemetry.
Graduating soon afterwards, O’Kane joined the team in 1988, to design and develop their own custom-made data package. It was only one of two on the tracks at the time, and the first in the 500 class – typical innovation for Team Roberts.
Since that time, O’Kane’s sphere of expertise has kept on expanding. “Electronics is probably five percent of what I do,” he explains.
In particular, since 1993 he has been involved in cutting-edge chassis design and development, exploring concepts of controlled flexibility, as well as new materials, and other techniques including the influences of the engine and crankshaft rotation on handling and chassis performance.
“I think we must be the only team to test different directions of crankshaft rotation with the same rider and on the same bike, back to back, in the same practice session,” he said, describing an outing in 1999 with rider Mike Hale, with primary drive first by chain, then swopped in a quick pit stop to gear, to spin the crankshaft the opposite way. “It made a huge difference to the handling,” he said.
O’Kane lives near Dublin and has two children. He also lives in a world of high theory, marked by complex computer simulation programmes and an unparalleled understanding of motorcycle dynamics. He is deeply involved in the conception and design of the new four-stroke. And he has his hands on as crew chief to McWilliams.
A typical team man.

NICK DAVIES
ENGLAND, AUGUST 2, 1957
After five years in the army, Nick Davis spent 1978 studying motorcycle engineering at the famous Merton Technical College facility, and joined Kawasaki UK to take care of the press test fleet. “The racing team was right alongside, and I used to go to races with them and help them out – until the team boss, Ken Suzuki, offered me a job on the team.”
That was in the 500 class with rider Kork Ballington in 1982. Since then, Davis has held increasingly senior positions in factory teams for Suzuki, Honda and Yamaha, gaining a vast breadth of hands-on experience and knowledge.
He was a mechanic for Freddie Spencer’s Honda team in 1983, the year the newcomer to racing won the World Championship after a year-long battle with none other than Kenny Roberts.
Long since forgiven, Davis joined what was then Team Lucky Strike Roberts in 1986, then moved to Suzuki, returned to HRC via Yamaha France, then rejoined Roberts in 1994. He has been with the team ever since, working with among others Randy Mamola’s Yamaha in the off-track test team in 1994 and 1995, Kenny Junior’s Modenas and now Nobuatsu Aoki’s Proton.
A highly practical engineer, the soft-spoken Davis looks forward to replicating his GP high spot so far – Daryl Beattie’s first-ever GP win in 1993 – with the team, as it moves forward into the four-stroke era.
Away from the track, the former Londoner has recently moved to Wales, with his wife and two sons.