Exclusive: Team Roberts to miss Chinese GP.

Team Roberts will not be going to the Chinese MotoGP on May 1 after a lack of engines caused them to think again before the big trip.

With only three engines for three GP weekends on limited mileage, things were always going to be tight until a batch of 14 new 'Evo 2' engine blocks were to appear at the French GP at Le Mans on May 15th.

A plan was hatched to send the Jerez engine back to be rebuilt and then flown to China, but that plan fell apart when there were two engine failures at Estoril. With a lack of parts from the series 1 engine the problem, the plug was pulled.

Our eagle eyed reporter Toby Moody realised the Roberts plight after noticing that the flight cases were not prepared for the Chinese trip after Sunday's race. Upon looking into a fully loaded - not empty truck - it was confirmed.

Team Roberts is in a state of flux at present with one of their biggest assets, Tom O'Kane, having been poached by Suzuki for 2005. Roberts KTM could not offer O'Kane anything else, even though it is perceived that KTM had already made their decision to run an engine with the Banbury team in 2005.

With only one bike to run in GPs, Canadian Tom Jojic has stood into the crew chief's breach, while his opposite number for Aoki last year, Nick Davis, has been relegated elsewhere in the team. KTM's Warren Willing wanders in and out of the garage when not in the KTM 125 garage at the other end of the paddock.

With the bike not appearing to live up to expectations of its initial runs in September and November last year, something has to change in order to get what was a very strong 220+bhp engine, cracking little chassis, the winning tyres and - along with Ducati - the second half of the 'Rest of the World' team to battle against the Japanese.