The British-built FTR Moto2 bike made its debut at the Montmelo track in Spain last weekend in the hands of Joe Darcey's Diego Lozano and will now go on to race in the final two CEV rounds.
The team were very impressed with the bike, so much so they entered it in a race on Sunday, but Lozano pulled out as he felt a small problem with the engine as the race wore on.
“The weekend was great. Nobody knew what we could achieve with this machine and to actually start the race was a big bonus for everyone. During the race I felt a small problem with the motor, not serious, but it was better to stop as we had already developed the machine a lot in the previous two days and proved its high potential," said the Spaniard.
“The performance on Friday and Saturday was far beyond our expectations,” said FTR Moto director Steve Bones. “The machine was only presented in London last Wednesday then shipped to Barcelona for this initial shakedown.
“We made good progress on Friday with Diego and improved dramatically on Saturday and in the end we were close to the best Moto2 times. The Joe Darcey Team worked exceptionally well with the new machine and we’ve definitely achieved a lot more than we expected at this stage.”
The FTR machine will now be tested at the Albacete circuit on October 22-23 with riders Kev Coghlan and Graeme Gowland and the machine will be raced in the final two Spanish Championship rounds – at Jerez on November 15 and Valencia on November 22 – with Gowland aboard.
