“We now plan for the Blata V6 to make its debut at the Grand Prix of the Czech Republic at Brno in August,” announced Pavel Blata. “This represents a considerable delay from our earlier hopes but we have realised that bowing to the pressure of being at the opening rounds of the season makes no sense in the longer run.” Following the unveiling of the V6 project and partnership between Blata and the WCM MotoGP team at last year’s Grand Prix in Brno, Blata have achieved a great deal. They have not simply been building the new machine that would be enough of a challenge in itself, but have been building a MotoGP race department from zero. “It is our intention to have a great deal of the engineering capability within our company,” explains Pavel Blata. “Of course we have partners who are being a great help but it makes no sense for us just to outsource everything. We do not do that with our production machines and we do not intend to do that in the racing department.” An engine dyno and a rolling road dyno are just a couple of the more obvious facilities now in place, there is also specialist rapid prototyping, casting and machining facilities that have taken time to set up but will pay huge dividends even in the short term. “We have made a long term commitment to race in MotoGP with WCM. They understand that we have to do things the right way and know it will pay off for all of us. We will support their continued use of the current four cylinder machine until the six is ready.” WCM backs the path taken by Blata. “It makes absolute sense,” says Peter Clifford, Director of Racing. “Setting up the race department and building the bike is a huge task. The progress has been incredible. There is simply no point in forcing the bike onto the track just so we can use it at this end of the season. We are much more interested in the quality of machine we will be using at the other end of the season.”