The beautiful green bike flashes by with its trademark flames trailing from the exhaust just before each upshift. It looks and sounds wonderful, but the FP1 is fighting with back markers, not for the lead. Unfortunately for Foggy Petronas Racing, this has been the rule, with the exception being a single fifth place finish by rider Troy Corser.
The giant Petronas Oil Company (a corporation even larger than Honda) combined with the legendary WSB champion Carl Fogarty to build a race winning machine. Unfortunately, well into its second season, Fogarty admits the bike is just plain slow. Handling is not the issue, but engine performance is way off the mark.
Fogarty believes in the triple’s potential, and promises massive improvement in engine performance for the 2004 season. Given Fogarty’s drive to win (both as a rider, and now, as a team owner/manager), you could expect he will settle for nothing less. He is not known as a patient man, and fielding an uncompetitive bike week-in-and-week-out must be killing him.
On the bright side, there is no way to go but up, and FPR is one of the few “factory” teams committed to the WSB series next year, along with Ducati. The opportunity to compete for podiums, and even victories, next year is certainly there.
