Most gossip today follows on from Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta's recent radio interview, in which he said that the 2013 MotoGP field won't have factory bikes, but it will be all CRT-style with a control ECU and a rev limit.
It makes perfect sense. It's Grand Prix racing - Grand Prize. It's the cream of the crop, or at least it's supposed to be. Something all the best riders aspire to. The best riders on the best machines. Not the best riders on the same stagnant machines. We have nascar, and moto2/3, and lawn mower racing for that.
This is the direction that they're trying to take the sport. The MSMA won't allow it to happen just like that though and it is probably more likely to expect 6 factory rides with the rest of the grid being made up of CRT's. Eventually though, the factories will probably leave GP's which is a truly sad thing. There is talk of altering the fuel rules even further for CRT's so that it will make satellite machinery completely useless. This will have the byproduct of hitting the manufacturers very, very hard financially as Dorna has historically helped smaller teams pay for satellite machines which has effectively subsidized the factories. I do understand the needs to cut costs to a degree, as at the rate things are going we could potentially be down to just 2 manufacturers in GP's which is a scary thought, but this totally isn't the way to go about it.
I wonder if all of the riders could just bail and go to WSBK. Now that would be great. A nice big grid, fast (and different) machines, you know, that thing they used to do called *racing.*
Since MotoGP went four stroke, the manufacturers, united in the MSMA, have had the monopoly on making the technical regulations. In exchange for supporting the series and committing to building enough motorcycles to supply the teams and fill the grid, the MSMA have been able to call the shots on the technical rules, making the changes they deem necessary to keep the series alive. The idea was that the factories would manage the rules to keep the series affordable for themselves, and guarantee a plentiful supply of bikes.
It hasn't worked out that way. I wrote about the reasons that MotoGP became so expensive in some detail about three years ago: a deadly combination of the law of unintended consequences and the perverse incentives that factories have to actually raise costs to exclude competition. But it is worth emphasizing that one of the main ways that the factories justify their racing programs to the people who hold the purse strings - the executive boards of their companies, people whose first responsibility is to the continuing existence of the company, not to any notion of their racing heritage - is as the place to conduct R&D. Progress is forged in the white-hot heat of competition, runs the argument, and engineers learn much faster when they have their competitors pushing them on rather than in the sterile environment of a research laboratory. Fear of the humiliation of defeat, and longing for the euphoria of victory are powerful motivators, the proponents say.
It's not boring because of prototypes! It's boring because of the current displacement and electronics formula. Spec tires, and lack of allowed testing, too.
It was always known that the move from two strokes to four strokes was going to cost more money. You can have rules that limit expenses, and still have prototypes! Factory, and satellite support prototypes. The series has survived this long with as few as one factory team, and as many as seven or eight. CRT bikes will be a complete joke next year. Worse than when the 500s battled the 990s. And that is what is proposed to replace prototypes. Just go ahead and call it the new moto1 superbike series and lay real GP racing to rest.
What it is a LOT closer to what the GP was back in the early days.
Find a motor somewhere, built the piss out of, find a chassis guy, and pay him to do the chassis...add a suspension, and then add monkey with a chip on his shoulder to ride it.
If they don't fuck it up, CRT is actually beautiful. You want to built a 5 million euro silver bullet of a motor, sure go for it, but there is going to be a race buy the other teams to pay the 20,000 euros to get it at the end of the race and see what you did.
Exactly. Most of the expense in MotoGP these days is in the electronics department. Supremely sophisticated traction control and fuel managent software systems are needed to make power for the whole race off of just 21 liters of fuel. The fuel restrictions have played a major role in escalating cost in MotoGP.
Because to do THAT, they would have to come out with a fancy new motor in a street bike, and then retrofit it into a race bike. Thus making the development of any new technologies almost impossible.
Yamaha never would have come up with the crossplane crank if that was the case. Engines would not be using pneumatic valves.
This is a BAD move. They need to get rid of spec tires, change fuel limits based on weight, and allow more testing days. Not unlimited, as that gives certain manufacturers a huge advantage, but at least allow a day of testing every race or every other race or something.
As it stands now, you only have a few testing days so you can't even make any concrete decisions on what direction to go.
No one said that you HAVE to use a production motor, they don't, but they can.
The issue with motoGP is that there are a lot more RACE teams than there are manufactures, so if you don't have the industrial power base of Honda or Yamaha the race team can't compete with the factories.
CRT makes less to the advantage of the factories to flat OUT SPEND (and that is exactly what it is) the actual race teams that make their money, y'know, racing because when they build that stupid insanely power motor for their factory bikes (look at the factory bikes compared to the satalites now) they can't crowd out the competition....because they will have to sell the motor for effectively chump change.
I want to see the best bikes the factories can bring. I want to see the best technology that they can develop. I want to see the best efforts and the best riders. I do not want to see what some folks can cobble together and bring racing. This is the premier class of motorcycle racing. This is the pinnacle. This is not some club racing circuit.
This. I want a motor size for the series (depending on cylinders) and that's about it. You come up with something new? Slap it on and race it. None of this making everything the same crap.
I didn't think testing limits were removed.... I thought they just added one weekend to the schedule for testing, and are letting riders do ALL of the test days instead of just some of them.
It's FAR from having all the limits removed.
And I also was under the impression that CRT bikes had to be production-based. But maybe they just MAY be production-based? And you only get the extra fuel if you want to be CRT, but since the factory guys don't want to sell their shit for cheap, they will not do that.
Either way, a claiming rule of like $20,000 is never going to work. Factories will not be able to get anything done if that is the case.
One more racing series down the drain, due to advanced technology, and the associated costs. In reality, there are only two ways to limit the cost of participation that will actually work. First, you could limit the actual dollar amount a team could spend. The other option is to limit the technology that can be used. Meaning something like... fuck the traction control, and fuck the 4-strokes. The problem with both of these, is that it ruins the idea of prototype racing. However, the reality of true prototype racing is that it can and will only result in one thing: He who has the most money wins. See HRC 2011.
I wonder what the chances would be of some company producing a completely over the top race rep with pneumatic valves to field a back door factory CRT effort. If anyone has specialist knowledge about this what is the feasability?
I can't wait for these CRT bikes, I hope there is a ton of them on the grid to make the racing more interesting again. I for one don;t care about wether or not the bikes have the latest tech, I watch racing to see great racing. WSBK, Moto2, and AMA were leaps and bounds better than MotoGP this season, With AMA Daytona SportBike being probably the best series to watch all around, those kids ride like maniacs.
Talking of which, the latest interpretation of Carmelo's radio interview is that we won't necessarily be 100% CRT in 2013, but that if the factories want to play they'll have to use a stock ECU complete with rev limit. I don't know if those facts are connected with the Japanese engineer who gave the bulk of the talk tonight using the f*** word, a first for a Japanese factory press conference in my experience.
Indeed. This is the pinnacle of racing on two wheels. The status and history of the class is directly related to its prototype only status. Old 500cc two strokes were fairly affordable and prototype. Even formula 1 has proved that an all prototype class can have big grids and close racing. I say keep the prototypes, ditch the fuel and tire rules, and limit the sophistication of TC/Engine Management systems.
If they're using fuel limits to limit power, then why not kill the fuel limit, and reduce the displacement? And to offset the weight of the fuel, have a minimum weight requirement for bike and rider, with tank empty.
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