Over the weekend, during the third round of the 2023 Superbike World Championship in Assen, the Dutch Ten Kate Racing team unveiled the second phase of the Motonext project.
Motonext is a project which was inaugurated in 2022 and features collaboration between Ten Kate and Project 1. The project is also sanctioned by the FIM.
Last year, the project debuted with a fairing made from renewable sources which Ten Kate has used on its Yamaha R6 World Supersport motorcycles at each race the Barcelona round of the 2022 championship. There, in Barcelona, Dominique Aegerter won both races on his way to the world title.
Finishing third in the second race at Barcelona last year was Stefano Manzi who, then, was riding a Triumph 765 Street Triple RS. The Italian’s impressive performances for Triumph in 2022 saw him catch the attention of Ten Kate, who signed him to race one of their Yamaha bikes for 2023.
The Italian took a podium finish on Sunday in the second WorldSSP race of the weekend in Assen. He did so with materials from Phase 2 of the Motonext project. That means a second-generation Bioflax material in the fairing, and new brakes from SBS.
The second-generation Bioflax material is both stronger and lighter than the first generation. Additionally, the hardener used in the second-generation Bioflax is comprised of more than 50% natural materials. A Ten Kate Racing press release says that the new material’s “properties are similar to carbon but with a CO2 reduction during production of more than 90%.”
The SBS brakes use pads which are totally copper- and nickel-free, as well as antimony-free in the case of ceramic brakes.
Finally, Motonext Phase 2 sees Ten Kate using a new “Engine Oil Reco Unit” (EORU) that allows oil to be directly reused after a session, rather than being disposed of. The oil used in the Ten Kate WorldSSP bikes in Assen was reused the next day in the Yamaha R3 bLU cRU Cup, to give an example.
Ten Kate says that the EORU can save 30,000 litres of oil in the WorldSBK paddock alone.
The announcement of Motonext Phase 2 came on the Thursday before the Dutch WorldSBK, and was therefore accompanied by Kawasaki’s announcement of their new solar-powered hospitality unit.
