From a press release issued by Camel Honda Racing Information:

Sito Pons honours his friend Antonio Cobas

On Monday morning Antonio Cobas passed away at his home in Barcelona, surrounded by the love of his family. After a career spangled with so many great successes, he was unable to win his last great fight against an illness that proved too hard to beat.

He leaves his wife, Tere, and his children Patricia and Jorge.

And he leaves an enormous void in his team, among his friends and in the world of motorcycling.

In the words of Sito Pons, a brief and heartfelt remembrance of Antonio:

“Antonio is no longer with us and his loss is hard to accept. The world of motorcycling has lost a great technician, a great man. Antonio was a true innovator, a precursor, a technician who for 25 years gave an enormous contribution to the technology of motorcycling competitions.

He never abided by the standards that had already been set, for he was always trying out new ways to improve the materials he had at his disposal. And that’s exactly what he did when he designed his motorbikes: he created the multi-tubular frame, and the integral body that is still used on today’s motorbikes… He was indeed a precursor, one who opened up the way for research and development, especially in the field of frame design, that others then followed.

His thoroughness, his expertise and his passion for motorcycling were a precious lesson for his riders. He helped me, he helped Alex Criville and he helped so many other riders win races and world championship titles, not just by providing technical assistance but by teaching them to work in the most systematic and productive manner.

I believe he will remain in the hearts and minds of many for a very long time, for his kindness and for his warm and always correct way of dealing with others. Certainly no one will ever forget – and this is surely his bequest to all of us – what he designed, what he built. His motorbikes. So many bikes: trial, endurance, road racing, in the 125cc and 250cc classes, an enormous heritage that he left us and that will remain for years.

I personally took his Kobas 250 to victory a number of times and I won two 250 world championships with the Campsa Honda team directed by Antonio in 1988 and 89, while Alex Criville was world champion with the JJ Cobas 125.

Antonio has gone, and I have lost a great friend, a person who worked with me for 25 years. I have always been in the world of road racing with him, and the mutual trust between us was always absolute.

He was a man who lived the way he wanted to, and he was always able to do the things that gave him the greatest satisfaction, always respecting the three values that were most important for him: his family, his friends, and his passion for work, science, technology and research.
A top-level engineer, always perfectly aware of the available technology and always knowing exactly what to do to enter the future. He was always two or three steps ahead of the others. Once, I remember – it was in the 1980s, when we were making the Kobas – Antonio said to me: “we’ve got to get in touch with NASA, we’ve got to talk with Houston. We need some futuristic material that’s only used in aeronautics.” And that’s what we did. That’s just an example of the sort of approach that Antonio took to research and development. He was also a precursor in the field of telemetry: one of the first to use sensors to study and understand the way the bike behaved. And I’m talking about ten years ago, when it was by no means obvious to make use of such advanced technologies. Antonio was truly creative and this can be seen in all the innovations he introduced.

His dream was to build a MotoGP, but this was something that life did not allow him to do. So Antonio dedicated the last few years of his work to the study of new software and technologies for the electronic control of racing bikes.
He will always remain in our lives, and in all of us, for ever.

Antonio was our school. He was a teacher for the team and for all of us. I know he is in a place of peace and tranquillity now, and that he will always be with us, helping us to win, to reach our objectives and to remain united in his memory.