Virgin to use 'Big-Bang' all season.

The Virgin Yamaha British Superbike team today unveiled the first ever 'Big-Bang' R1 Superbike at the second preseason official test at Brands Hatch.

It was initially believed that the team were simply testing the radical new engine configuration, but it has now emerged that they will be fielding all three riders, Sean Emmett, Tommy Hill and Richard Wren, with the big bang engine this season.

The Virgin Yamaha British Superbike team today unveiled the first ever 'Big-Bang' R1 Superbike at the second preseason official test at Brands Hatch.

It was initially believed that the team were simply testing the radical new engine configuration, but it has now emerged that they will be fielding all three riders, Sean Emmett, Tommy Hill and Richard Wren, with the big bang engine this season.

The Virgin Yamaha team engine builder, Kev Stephenson, admitted that the problem last year was too much power, which led them to develop the 'Big-Bang' four-cylinder.

"We created too much power last year and over the winter we found a whole lot more," commented Stephenson. "We got to the point last year where we probably had the most powerful Superbike on the grid and we just couldn't use the power we had so we had to do something that made the bike more usable."

Many teams who had looked at using the 'Big-Bang' engine this season argued that the stresses that the two large pulses of the engine put on the internal components would make it unfeasibly fragile to use in racing.

However Virgin Yamaha have claimed that they have not yet had an engine failure and boast they have put 1500km on a race engine without failure.

"We haven't had a single breakdown yet during testing, so fingers crossed we won't!" concluded Stephenson.

The first race of the British Superbike season is at Brands Hatch on Monday 28th March.

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