Signs of greater integration for Kawasaki’s Grand Prix effort has become clearer over the last two weeks with news emerging that Monster Energy Dixon Racing Team are to widen their engine development work with worldwide renowned tuners Cosworth.
Steve Dixon will fine tune KX450F and KX250F technology for his own two riders – Tommy Searle and Vsevolod Brylyakov – but also be responsible for the motors of CLA racers Dylan Ferrandis and Petar Petrov and apparently has already been testing with both.
Dixon marshalled Max Anstie’s bumpy world championship plight in 2015 and helped the Briton to third place in the standings with three Grand Prix victories – more than any other Kawasaki rider in the class in what was the first year for the former Yamaha team in ‘green’.
Dixon had previously waded into an ambitious and highly advanced project with Yamaha’s (then) newly revised and fuel injected YZ250F in 2014 and faced obstacles with the late arrival of the motorcycles and a scheme that was always playing catch-up with the Grand Prix schedule.
Dixon’s five year association with Cosworth reached a peak when 2012 European Champion Mel Pocock described the team’s carburetted YZ250F as “one of the fastest 250s ever built”. Now Kawasaki – in an effort to streamline and embolden their racing efforts – have asked the technical partnership to mastermind their attempts for a first MX2 title since Christophe Pourcel’s 2006 victory. The project will also involve Pro Circuit material and feedback from the US.
“Next year it will be bigger,” Dixon said describing Cosworth’s involvement in MXGP. “They are doing the entire slate for Kawasaki when it comes to MX2. It is part of a more global approach from Monster and Kawasaki to have a set programme and get feedback to Japan.
“We happen to be in this position thanks to our relationship with Cosworth. Both Kawasaki and CLS visited their facilities and hopefully it is the start of a close collaboration between all of us as well as Mitch [Payton] and Pro Circuit. It is one part of a uniform approach.”
Monster Energy Kawasaki Racing Team will continue their own engine work in MXGP (Clement Desalle and Jordi Tixier as riders) in direct contact with the factory in Japan.
