In his recent interview with the official MotoGP website Michael Laverty reported that PBMUK will be using the Magneti Marelli control ECU on his PBM-01 (Yonny Hernandez will be using ART electronics) and that other teams would also be implementing the spec ECU this season, even if it won’t be made mandatory until 2014 for all teams.
MotoGP Director of Technology, Corrado Cecchinelli in an interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport confirmed that the Magneti Marelli ECU that costs between 50,000 to 100,000 euros (and includes an engine and chassis control unit with inboard datalogger, as well as relevant tuning and data analysis tools, dashboard, handlebar toggle switch and inertial platform) and will be supplied free of charge by Dorna, will be used by another three teams besides Paul Bird’s squad: IodaRacing, NGM Forward Racing (which will no doubt make Colin Edwards happy) and Avintia Racing.
Cecchinelli believes that this spec ECU is “already better than what Ducati and Yamaha have, and in 2014 and there will be a derivative of this version.
” The introduction of a mandatory ECU in 2014 was a compromise between the MSMA and Dorna after months of heated discussions with the manufacturers preferring the ‘penalty’ of running their machines on 20 liters of fuel (instead of the current 21) and and use just five engines per season in order to use their own software.