SuperBike Magazine September 2020

43
“AND THE MOST AMAZING THING
ABOUT THE RC211V WAS HOW
CONTROLLABLE IT FELT, DESPITE THE
FEROCIOUS ACCELERATION.”
The RC211V powered onto Valencia’s startfinish
straight on my first lap with a violence
that is still stamped indelibly on my mind
more than ten years later. Which says plenty
about Honda’s mighty V5 four-stroke, given
that barely an hour earlier I’d been riding
Alex Barros’s NSR500 — the last of the
vicious, 190bhp-plus V4 two-strokes that had
dominated grand prix racing for the previous
decade.
Within a few moments and a couple of
treads through its quick-shift enabled gearbox, the RC211V
was scorching past the blurred figures on the pit-lane wall
while I peered into the distance, already frantically trying to
find a braking marker at the end of what was suddenly a very
short straight. Even the NSR seemed almost sluggish by
comparison with the 990cc V5 on which Valentino Rossi had
just won MotoGP’s first title in 2002.
And the most amazing thing about the RC211V was how
controllable it felt, despite the ferocious acceleration from its
blend of 220bhp and just 145kg of weight. Having heard Rossi
talk about the speed and rideability of the RC-V, I’d expected it
to be more rider-friendly than the NSR, but I hadn’t expected
the differences to be so obvious. Whereas the two-stroke had
felt and sounded like the anti-social beast that it was, the V5
was polite, well-mannered — and so fast it drained my blood
into my boots.
That speed had been obvious throughout the RC-V’s debut
season, arguably the most impressive by any bike in the
history of racing’s premier class. Honda’s dominance was a
fitting reward for the imagination and commitment that the
firm had shown in developing a V5 for the big change to 990cc
four-strokes. In that first MotoGP season the RC211V won 14
of the 16 races, including the first nine, its only real rival being
the Yamaha YZR-M1 on which Max Biaggi won twice.
High impact
As I threw a leg over the RC-V’s seat on this end-of-season
HRC test, my view was of low screen and clip-ons, roughcast
top yoke, a small panel with round, black-faced tacho
reading to 17,000rpm, and a digital display showing lap time
and engine temperature. I accelerated out onto the almost
empty Valencia track, conscious of the crisp, ear-splitting
five-cylinder bark from the twin silencers as the engine revved
towards its 14,200rpm limit through the gears.
The handling was immediately impressive, but it was the
force of that amazing engine that made most impact. Whether
it was grunting out of slow turns with an effortless yet utterly
linear surge, or howling down that start-finish straight
towards the 200mph-plus top speed (Rossi hit 190mph even
here), the V5 was never anything less than breathtaking.
The Honda also had a phenomenally rock-solid feel through
the turns, feeling so neutral and well balanced that it almost
seemed to be laughing at my efforts to make it work hard.
Is it just us, or does moped-pipe-specialist
Polini seem a little out of place here?