MRW Issue 8 preview

Looking
Back
History
T h e I l m o r X 3
Maker
Gary McCoy testing
the X3 at Valencia.
2006 Was drawing to a close. The 990cc bikes knew their
time was up, and they would be replaced with 800cc bikes
for 2007. Ilmor decided to get a headstart in the last two
races of 2006, at estoril and valencia respectively. By Jacob Ward
On the face of it, there was a good chance the bike could taste success.
It was conceived by Mario Ilien, who had experience building F1 engines,
and Eskil Suter, who’s chassis would go on to win the 2012 Moto2 title with
Marc Marquez. As you would imagine, the engine was of Ilien’s own design,
a 90-degree V4 with pneumatic valves and F1 know-how. This know-how
would also work the opposite way at one point too, when the engineers
asked Garry McCoy why couldn’t he ‘just hold the throttle steady at 15,000
RPM through the corner’. This was no F1 car, and it was a difficult ask. They
made an engine that was good for the time, producing 240hp from the
800cc lump.
The chassis had a focus on being compact, with angular lines and a slim
profile to cut through the air, very much how the Kawasaki bike of the time
looked. It was a conventional design, a twin-spar aluminium chassis and
aluminium swingarm to boot. Suter had a hand in the design of the Kawasaki
chassis, so this was no coincidence. It was reportedly tricky to nail the
chassis setup, a trait that would continue on a lot of the Suter designed bikes
through the years.
The Ilmor team rocked up to Estoril amidst a lot of chatter and interest,
and when they revealed the bike they talked up it’s potential, claiming
that although the bike would struggle against the 990cc machines on the
200+mph straight, that the bike was actually lapping faster than the Ducati
GP7 in testing. The race in Portugal went exactly as you would expect, with
McCoy qualifying last and coming home in last, 4 laps down from the winner,
Toni Elias. It was no matter, as the Ilmor team had a lot of what they wanted:
Data. As this data was essential for a new team, every lap literally mattered.
There was a nice upshot too though, as even though they had brought up
the rear of the field, the 15th and final point scoring position was theirs.