When Valentino Rossi left the Honda MotoGP team for Yamaha, it put tremendous pressure on Yamaha to develop a bike that Rossi could win on. Yamaha responded well, and Rossi won the opening round of the MotoGP series this year in South Africa.
Is Suzuki in a similar situation having signed Ricky Carmichael for 2005? Certainly, outdoors it is. Suzuki will have a new four-stroke 450cc motocross machine for Carmichael to ride outdoors next year (assuming Carmichael will ride the proven Suzuki RM250 indoors — during the supercross series). Suzuki will be under tremendous pressure to develop its new 450 to the same level Honda will be at in 2005 with its 450cc motocross machine. Not an easy task, whatsoever.
The Honda CRF450R is a tremendous bike, both stock and modified. It could even be a weapon of choice in supercross next year for Honda factory riders, and privateers, as well. Kevin Windham has shown that the big Red machine is a potent weapon indoors.
In the end, the story is always the same. When you hire the best rider available, you better provide him with the equipment he can win on. If he doesn’t win, the bike manufacturer gets blamed, not the rider.
