Dorna

The agenda for Wednesday's meeting of the Grand Prix Commission  - MotoGP's rule-making body - was clear: To thrash out some of the difficulties arising from their previous decision to revert MotoGP to 1000cc. Their hope was that after this meeting, the main points of the rules would be clear to everyone involved, and manufacturers and privateers could go off and start working on the machines which they will contest the 2012 MotoGP championship with.

Sure enough, after the meeting, the FIM issued a press release containing the new regulations agreed by the GP Commission, and it should come as no surprise that a host of details remain to be sorted out. The changes noted in the press release do point to some fascinating developments. Here are the main points for the 2012 regulations, which we will go into in more detail below:

Technical Specifications for 2012 for the MotoGP class

The news that MotoGP is set to change capacity and formula again for the third time in 10 years has caused as much concern as it has joy. Almost everyone concerned has welcomed the return to 1000cc, not least the riders, and many people also expressed the commonly-held opinion that the switch to 800cc was the worst thing to happen to the class. But many observers also pointed out that the change of formula, though aimed at cutting costs in the long term, meant yet more expenditure in the short term as the factories would be forced to develop a brand new engine once again.

That criticism is shared by the MSMA, the association representing the manufacturers in MotoGP. According to MCN's extremely well-informed MotoGP reporter Matthew Birt, the MSMA is pushing for the 800s to get a reprieve in 2012. Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta told Birt that 2012 regulations will allow two separate formulas to run side by side, as in the first year of the MotoGP four strokes in 2002. Having invested so heavily in their 800cc machines, the factories could continue to run the smaller capacity bikes against the 1000cc bikes, with the liter bikes restricted to a maximum bore of 81mm and four cylinders, as announced in Geneva at the end of last year.

Yamaha's announcement that they would be fielding Ben Spies as a wildcard rider in the final MotoGP round at Valencia saw fans and journalists rushing to their rule books. The MotoGP regulars were mostly on the last of the 5 engines they had been permitted to use in the last 7 races, but how did the engine limit rule affect Ben Spies? Just how many engines did a wildcard rider have? The answer, it turned out, was as many as Yamaha wanted to give him, for the rule book made no mention of wildcards, and therefore wildcard riders could use as many as they liked. In Ben Spies' case, this was basically two - one in each of the two Yamaha M1's he was using, but in theory, he could have popped a fresh engine in every time he went out.

Members of the Grand Prix Commission admitted at the time that it was an anomaly, while pointing out at the same time that it was mostly irrelevant. MotoGP rarely - and tragically - sees wildcard riders take part in races, and so the lack of a rule would have no real effect on the outcome of the championship.

Friday's meeting of the Grand Prix Commission in Geneva had been keenly awaited by fans and followers of MotoGP, primarily because of the expected announcement of the class' return to 1000cc from 2012 onwards. So naturally, after the press release was issued, almost all the press coverage focused on the details of the 1000cc proposal which had been accepted by the Commission, that from 2012 MotoGP bikes will be allowed a maximum capacity of 1000cc, a maximum of 4 cylinders, and a maximum bore of 81mm.

As important as the changes to be made from the 2012 season onwards are, there were just 4 lines in a document comprising some 15 pages (read the entire document for yourself in PDF format here). And amidst those 15 pages are some fairly fascinating details which, although for direct application next season, highlight the direction that MotoGP will be headed in 2012, and how they will deal with some of the issues the series faces.

Moto2

The Grand Prix Commission, MotoGP's rulemaking body, met today in Geneva to discuss a number of issues, clarifying a number of open points in the rule book concerning Moto2, as well as a few other minor points. But the point that MotoGP fans around the world had been waiting for most fervently was the new rules for MotoGP to take effect from 2012.

In the huge press release with regulation changes just issued by the FIM, the part covering MotoGP's new rule changes were incredibly brief- just four lines:

Basic concept for MotoGP

• Maximum displacement: 1000cc
• Maximum number of cylinders: 4
• Maximum bore: 81 mm

And so as predicted (most prophetically by Dennis Noyes on Speed TV), the "silver bullet" Carmelo Ezpeleta described is limiting the bore. Speaking to MotoGP.com, the Dorna CEO described the decision to limit the bore to 81mm as follows: "It's a very important measurement because with this we can have all the characteristics of the engine."

If anyone had any doubts about the importance of the meeting of the Grand Prix Commission at Geneva on December 11th, Carmelo Ezpeleta's charm offensive in the media should remove them completely. Ezpeleta spoke to Motoworld.es on Friday about the new regulations due to come into force in 2012, and today, the Dorna CEO gave an extended interview to the Spanish sports daily AS.com, in which he expanded on the changes.

Ezpeleta's main purpose with the interview was to make clear that the switch back to 1000cc will not in any way impinge on the World Superbikes series' territory. The bikes, Ezpeleta emphasized are prototypes, and will have nothing to do with production bikes. "There will not be a word in these regulations about production engines," Ezpeleta told AS.com. The bikes are prototypes, and which engine was used was entirely up to the builder of the bike, not something set out in regulations.

Ever since the announcement that MotoGP will return to 1000cc in 2012, a war has been brewing between Infront Motor Sports, the commercial rights holders for the World Superbike series, and the FIM and Dorna. IMS, in the person of Paolo Flammini, has threatened on several occasions to defend what they believe to be their exclusive right to organize production-based motorcycle racing against any move by the FIM - or rather, the Grand Prix Commission, in which the FIM, Dorna, the manufacturers' association MSMA and the teams' assocation IRTA all have a seat - to allow the use of production engines in the MotoGP class.

The FIM has come out clearly on the side of MotoGP, with Vito Ippolito stating clearly that the World Superbike contract does not pose an obstacle to the use of production engines in MotoGP. Ippolito's argument is that IMS' contract grants them the exclusive right to organize races for production motorcycles, not motorcycles using production engines.

Despite the fact that the proposal to return to a 1000cc capacity was made by Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta, Dorna have kept very quiet on the whole affair. Yesterday, however, in an interview with the Spanish website Motoworld.es, Ezpeleta spoke out to clarify Dorna's position, though he did so very carefully. He emphasized that he did not want to get into a war of words with IMS over the definition of a production engine. "Nowhere will we say anything about using production engines, nothing, nowhere." Ezpeleta told Motoworld.es. "Nor will we draw up a definition of whether an engine is a production engine or not."

There has been a good deal of talk in recent weeks about the proposed changes to the MotoGP class, but confusion still exists about exactly what those changes entail. When even our good friends, the normally extremely well-informed Jules Cisek and Jim Race over at the MotoGPOD podcast get the proposals wrong, then it's time for some clarification. And so we have set out below the state of the proposed rule changes, as they stand now, prior to the Grand Prix Commission meeting scheduled for December 11th, 2009.

2012

The agreement governing the current rules package (i.e. 800cc prototypes) is due to expire at the end of 2011, and so the new rules will come into effect for the 2012 MotoGP season. Under the proposals currently being studied, the class will consist of the following machine types:

The 800cc formula is dead. MotoGP is set to return to 1000cc from 2012, according to a proposal submitted to the Grand Prix Commission at Valencia today. The 800cc bikes have received a deluge of criticism, almost from the moment they were introduced, and that deluge has finally buried them.

The decision has hinged upon a change of mind by the MSMA, the manufacturers association. So far, the manufacturers have been opposed to any changes to the MotoGP formula, partly because high costs of entry created a barrier to new entrants in the class, allowing the existing participants to dominate the class. But the high costs have taken their toll even on the existing manufacturers, and with the future of Suzuki in the class in doubt under the current rules, and even doubt about just how long Honda was prepared to continue, a change was almost inevitable. 2012 is the earliest date it is possible to make the change, as the current 5 year contract that exists between Dorna, the FIM and the MSMA expires at the end of 2011. That contract states that no changes may be made to the engine capacity without a unanimous decision by all of the manufacturers in the MSMA.

The reduction in testing has been a double-edged sword in MotoGP, allowing costs to be cut on the one hand, but punishing the six rookies due to enter the class for the 2010 season. With so many rookies coming, the factories - or at least one of them - have been keen to bend the rules to help the incomers adapt to MotoGP. The request for more testing for the rookies faced a lot of opposition, and up until this morning, it looked like it would be denied.

Once in the Grand Prix Commission, held at Valencia this afternoon, things swung the other way. At the request of Suzuki, the MSMA put the request to the Permanent Bureau (consisting of Dorna CEO and FIM president Vito Ippolito), bypassing the Grand Prix Commission, and the Permanent Bureau approved one extra test to be held at Estoril in the middle of November. This was a compromise proposal, as the MSMA had initially requested one extra test for the rookies, plus one day extra prior to the three official MotoGP tests to be held at Sepang and Qatar in February and March of 2010. The Permanent Bureau rejected the extra day of testing for the rookies at the three official tests, but allowed two days of testing at Estoril.

Ever since its inception, the 800cc MotoGP formula has been unpopular with both the fans and the riders. The high state of engine tune has made the formula extremely expensive, as well as requiring the extensive use of electronics just to make the bikes ridable. This, in turn, has taken much of the spectacle out of the riding, requiring an incredible precision of style to get the best out of them, and making passing very difficult indeed.

The biggest problem, though, is the expense. With the cost of leasing a satellite MotoGP bike upwards of 2 million euros a year, grids are shrinking with little prospect of that trend being reversed. Something clearly needs to be done, but with the manufacturers already heavily invested in the 800cc formula, getting any change in engine capacity through the Grand Prix Commission, MotoGP's rule-making body, is a very difficult task.

Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta is determined to try, however. In an online chat with visitors to the website of the Spanish TV broadcaster RTVE, Ezpeleta explained that he intended to push forward his previously discussed plans for a return to 1000cc at this weekend's meeting of the Grand Prix Commission at Valencia. When asked if he would like to see a return to 1000cc in 2011, he replied "Right now, it is not going to be possible to switch in 2011, because the agreement with the manufacturers means that we could only make that change before the end of the 2011 season if there was unanimous agreement among the manufacturers. But we are thinking about a return to a 1000cc capacity from the start of the 2012 season, and we will start discussing it this weekend."

Putting together a season of international motorcycle racing is difficult enough at the best of times. But the 2010 calendar has proven to be a particularly tough nut to crack, as the FIFA Soccer World Cup and a reshuffle of the Formula One calendar has wreaked havoc and caused a number of high-profile clashes. Le Mans is scheduled for the same weekend as the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix, and the Misano MotoGP round is due to clash with the Monza Formula One race. Add the fact that several World Cup soccer matches are likely to be played at the same time as some of the MotoGP races, and the complexity of the calendar is complete.

So Dorna and the FIM are due to sit down this weekend at the final MotoGP round of the 2009 season to try and sort out the 2010 calendar, but it will be no easy task. Both Le Mans and Misano are likely to be moved, but the best candidate for being shifted around is the British Grand Prix, due to be held at Silverstone for the first time in many years. Currently, the race is scheduled to clash with the Isle of Man TT, one of the biggest events on the motorcycling calendar, especially for British fans, and so attendance could have been poor at the first running of the race's return to the Northamptonshire track. Now that Donington's excessively ambitious plans to host the British Formula One Grand Prix have fallen through, Silverstone is back in the running for the F1 race, and that event is likely to add to the pressure of rescheduling the MotoGP event.

When news came that the 250cc class would be abandoned in favor of the four-stroke Moto2 formula, the first question that everyone raised was whether the 125cc class would be next. The 125cc single cylinder bikes are the last bastion of the two stroke engine, and two-stroke fans both inside and outside the paddock fear that the writing is on the wall for the engine which came to dominate motorcycle road racing for such a long time.

The good news is that the 125cc class is here to stay, at least for a while. The German magazine Motorsport-Magazin spoke to Carmelo Ezpeleta at Estoril, and the Dorna CEO assured them that as far as he was concerned, the 125cc class should be left as it is, at least for the moment. The class serves as an excellent training ground for the champions of the future, Ezpeleta told Motorsport-Magazin. "Young talent gets their first chance to cut their teeth in the class and learn," Ezpeleta said. "The past has shown that nearly all of the riders at the front in MotoGP now were also very strong in the smallest class."