[silentservice703]

Ok, so I have done some reading, but I am not entirely certain what the "CRT" designation means. Care to help a guy understand......

[Bev Evans]

It means "Claim rule team", didn't there use to be something similar in American domestic racing way back.


http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/168...ming_rule.html

Bev

[luizfto]

CRTs are very bad designed bikes, it seens:

- 5s slower than the prototypes, average
- about the same lap times as GP2 bikes which are 600cc machines
- worse lap time on the average than SBK bikes

Cannot understand how a RSV 4 Factory can became such a bad ART bike!

[CAG]

Cathode Ray Tube.

[Deequeue]

-edit - hehehe CAG

As Bev said - its stands for Claiming Rule Teams - Essentially what it means is that if a CRT team end up doing really well, an MSMA member (Honda, Yam, Ducati) can claim an engine from the team at a cost of 20k euro's.

Its essentially there to stop Kawasaki, Aprillia etc from getting a prototype engine in through the back door, using the CRT rules, as the CRT's are allowed to use double the number of engines over the season, and more fuel.

Luiz -you need to check the laptimes out from the circuits both championships go to, the top end CRT's (Aprillia's, admittedly) are running the same times as the WSBK machinery - at some circuits they're slightly faster - Brno, as an example. Considering the fact that they have maybe half the number of engines that they use in WSBK, with no refreshing of parts allowed, I don't think they are doing too badly. Not to mention that this is their first season of racing.

The Suters had shocking bosch electronics last season, which is why Forward racing are using Kawasaki engines next year - Apparently the Honda that Michele Pirro was using is putting out less power than a stock Fireblade cause of reliability worries too.

Saying that, I don't really think its the way forwards for motoGP, and it looks like Yamaha will be leasing engines and Honda selling a full bike for 2014, so it could mean we don't see many of them going forwards.

[silentservice703]

So, the CRT teams compete directly with the MotoGP teams? WSBK teams?

[Deequeue]

Originally Posted by silentservice703

So, the CRT teams compete directly with the MotoGP teams? WSBK teams?

Yeah, they're the same class as motogp, race at the same time - The fastest CRT bikes are currently around 2 - 3 seconds a lap slower than factory prototype stuff, which puts them in the same area as the satellite prototype bikes.


Essentially, in layman's terms, prototypes aren't allowed to share any engine / frame components with production bikes.

CRT's are modified production based engines in a prototype chassis - The Aprillia ART team runs what is pretty much a modified RSV4 engine, in a chassis designed in house.... im not sure how much it differs to an RSV4 frame though.

The CRT's run the same tires as the prototypes though, which apparently is half the problem as they don't work the tires like the full on prototypes, so they don't generate as much heat in the tires.


Its more complex than that, but that's how things are without going deeper into the rules.


Randy De-puniet and Aleix Espagaro were on the Aprillia ART bikes this year, Colin Edwards rides for forward racing, there were about 5 or 6 teams running CRT bikes, and there will be a couple more next year.

[silentservice703]

This is all very interesting! Is there any way to tell, besides doing research and learning, who is on a CRT team? NASCAR has a rookie yellow stripe on the bumper...is there any identifier like that?

[JDS]

.
I think the CRT ruling was only applied once back in the mid 60's against the works Triumph team at the end of a Daytona race..

I can't remember the facts but I'm sure it did happen..

Triumph had to pay the guy off by offering him a new bike with a load of works spares, because at the time they only had a limited number of the proper works prototype bikes and couldn't afford to loose a bike under this new ruling..

Be interesting if someone could find any info on how many times this CRT ruling has been applied to a works team..

.

[MRT]

Originally Posted by silentservice703

Is there any way to tell, besides doing research and learning, who is on a CRT team?

Yep, they are the slow bikes running around at the back, occaisonally mixing with the satellite Ducati's!

But seriously, no. There's not that many of them so once you have read about them and watched them a couple of times you get to know who they are.

My opinion is that CRT hasn't been a success and I would be happy to see them dropped, but the factories would have to come to the party and supply affordable prototype bikes to the private teams.