SBK Donington | Page 49

era , plus naming rights to numerous individual rounds , has raised its brand awareness for bike riding fans of the biggest productionderived championship of all - WorldSBK .
The new Official Lubricant Partner status of the famous HRC brand , taken up a level after becoming the team ’ s lubricant supplier in 2020 , is a vote of confidence in the HRC team , the WorldSBK championship as a whole , and of course the Motul products the team will rely on to handle the 200bhp-plus power needed to compete at this rarified level .
The latest link is also entirely logical . Together with Motul , Team HRC has been continuing development of the CBR 1000 RR-R , with continual feedback to engineers in Japan . Among Motul ’ s international R & D centres is one in Japan whose engineers collaborate with HRC ’ s engine development department on a range of different projects including the development of hightech synthetic lubricants . Principal among these is the tailor-made MOTUL 300V Factory Line Racing Kit Oil 2376H 0W-30 fully synthetic engine oil which will be used alongside the Motocool Factory Line and MC CARE range of products .
Motul ’ s viscosity grade 0W-30 , 100 % synthetic lubricant yields a low traction coefficient thanks to the Ester technology , generating a friction reduction and therefore providing a significant gain in engine power . The exclusive development of the formulation for the Honda CBR 1000 RR-R fitted with an HRC KIT allows a significant improvement of the wet clutch engagement which results into more power being transmitted to the rear wheel , and an exceptional increased reliability of the moving parts thanks to a choice of latest generation specific anti-wear additives .
The self-same protection accorded to HRC ’ s WorldSBK engines is available to customers in the form of MOTUL 300V Factory Line Racing Kit Oil 2376H 0W-30 , plus all the other specialist lubricants required to keep race bikes and road bikes running at the optimum level of performance and reliability .
As Arai Katsuya , general Manager of Motul R & D said on the launch of the 300V Factory Line Racing Kit Oil , “ Every team wants to have better power but without compromising on reliability . With a greater than 200bhp superbike , if we gain one percent of the horsepower it could give additional speed on the straight , and that is a benefit of the Racing Kit Oil . If there is no compromise on reliability , then everything will be perfect and the team will have a better result . The unique ESTER chemistry of our Racing Kit Oil means we can extract the maximum engine power without compromising on reliability and wear .”
This new season ’ s hopes from HRC rest on the proven entities of 2021 riding line up Alvaro Bautista and Leon Haslam , back to challenge even harder this year after a complicated first season on the latest CBR1000RR-R on 2020 . Despite the intervention of Covid , curtailed travel plans in testing by HRC engineers and a compressed season following on from limited track testing opportunities of any kind , that first modern-era Honda Fireblade podium was achieved by Bautista at MotorLand last summer .
Even with the ever increasing range of competitors in 2021 the ambitions of all involved are high after a winter of continuous improvement , underlined by the well-founded confidence in technical development partners such as Motul
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