also make good sense for the mooted twincylinder class in Moto3? Paton is already making a chassis and providing a race-ready 108hp engine capable of propelling the machine to a 162mph( 260km / h) top speed. It sells this ready-to-race package for US $ 56,800( 48,500 Euro), just under the mooted new 50,000 Euro price cap for the revamped Moto3 class.
THERE IS ANOTHER POSSIBILITY In 2019 Kawasaki took a 49.5 percent stake in the Italian chassis maker Bimota and in 2025 the official Kawasaki entry in the Superbike World Championship was a ZX10RR engine in a Bimota chassis, the team known as Bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team. Whether Kawasaki has the marketing acumen to pitch a proposal to Dorna for a Bimota 650 Kawasaki Moto3 machine, time will tell. As we can see, the engine is race proven after almost two decades of racing. It comes standard with a slipper clutch and a side-loading( cassette) transmission. Then there is the 690 Yamaha, which was released in the USA in 2015. Immediately,
Keith McCarthy, Yamaha Motor Corp. USA’ s Motorsports Racing Division Manager, saw its potential for flat-track racing, as did Yamaha’ s motorcycle product line manager Derek Brooks. The result was the DT-07 Flat Track Concept bike displayed at the October 2015 AIMExpo in Orlando, Florida. Unlike the bottom-up Werner-Kawasaki 650 development, this was a top-down approach, with Yamaha having a concept flat-track chassis built for its engine. Over time, it has collaborated with G & G Racing and Estenson Racing to race in the AFT Production Twins class( which it has won twice) and has now won the AFT SuperTwins Championship. And as noted above, the 690 Yamaha has also provided a platform for Supertwins road-racing at the Isle of Man. Given Yamaha’ s long-term commitment to grand prix racing, a Yamaha 690 engine in a Suter or Kalex chassis is probably not beyond the bounds of reality. Either way, the motorcycle that will become the Moto3 platform in 2028 will almost certainly have its roots in AFT racing.
Above: Two years after the DT-07 Flat Track Concept bike was revealed, Palhegyi Design revealed a‘ Street Tracker’ version but Yamaha has yet to greenlight a production version. But the engine could form the basis for the revamped Moto3 class in grand prix racing
64 KIWI RIDER