Dorna’s CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta is extolling the need and virtues of CRTs in MotoGP to fill dwindling grid numbers in order make racing less expensive with major rule changes expected for the 2013 season, hypothesizing that the new rules could include limiting factories to selling satellite bikes and not leasing them (something that satellite teams have been complaining about for years, with the manufacturers prefering to having the bikes returned and crushed at the end of the season) at one million euros, limiting performance with spec ECUs, rev limits, restrictions on engine development and even a weight system, a la Superbike.
So how are the factories taking these proposed new rules? Not well, if we were to base our opinion on a statement by Ducati’s General Manager Claudio Domenicali’s during the 2012 Wrooom.
Domenicali basically said he agrees on cost cutting is a necessity, but the zinger is, “If the championship goes in the direction of CRTs only and this means only production based four-cylinder engines to go racing and to be competitive then we would be forced to leave the series.
”The Italian manager offered his own ideas in order to cut costs, which includes limiting testing days for the championship’s winning manufacturer, adding ballast to the more competitive bikes which would level out the field performance wise, so the factories could still continue working technological development.
However, Domenicali has admitted that while the manufacturers have offered up different proposals, they can’t seem to agree on a common denominator that satisfies everyone.
Ezpeleta will forcing the factories to come up with some viable and inexpensive solutions by May of this year and if they can’t come to an agreement, we could see pure prototype racing gone in the near future replaced with a bastardized version of Superbike racing.