When Keith McCarthy, Yamaha USA’ s Motorsports Racing Division Manager, saw the first 690cc parallel twin engine, his immediate thought was that it would be great for flat-track racing. Yamaha’ s motorcycle product line manager Derek Brooks agreed and at the October 2015 AIMExpo in Orlando, Florida, the DT- 07 Flat Track Concept bike was revealed. It was the handiwork of Jeff Palhegyi Design
Lintin and this time Michael Rutter brought a Paton home in third place, at 117.657mph. For the 2016 Lightweight TT, a staggering 53 riders faced the starter, all but 12 of them using 650 Kawasaki power. Michael Rutter finally gave the Kawasakipowered Paton a win, when he topped the 39-rider field in 2017, by now almost all Kawasakis. Despite the‘ superior’ Italian chassis, his race average of 118.645mph was a whisker under Lintin’ s 2015 record. Rutter made amends in 2018, establishing a new 120.601mph average on a Paton. There were four other Patons in the race but almost all the rest of the 45 were Kawasakis. A year later it was Michael Dunlop who won, on a Paton, upping the winning average speed to 121.646mph.
SUPERTWINS Then came the great global catastrophe – the 2020 and 2021“ lock-downs”— with no racing at all at the TT. When racing returned in 2022, the regulations had been changed, the class now called
“ Supertwins” with a 700cc capacity limit that saw the new Yamaha YZF-R7 and Aprilia’ s RS660 in the field. No matter, Kawasaki power prevailed, with Peter Hickman doing the business on a Paton with a 120.006mph average. The Italian brand won again in 2023, with Michael Dunlop winning from fellow Paton rider Mike Browne in the first of two races. In the second, Peter Hickman gave the YZF-R7 Yamaha its début Supertwins TT win, but his 119.318mph average was below Dunlop’ s 2019 benchmark. It was left to Dunlop to up his winning speed with a 122.451mph effort in the second of the two races in 2024. He won both on a 650 Kawasaki powered Paton. He repeated the effort( two wins on a Paton) in 2025.
MOTO3 POTENTIAL When privateers overwhelmingly choose one particular make and model of production bike for racing, it is a good bet that is because it is easily available and relatively cheap to race. On that basis alone, could the Kawaski 650 twin
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