Dorna Head Talks About Joint Control of MotoGP and WSB (News)

[VersysRider]

Earlier today at Motegi, Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta spoke to the media about the future of both MotoGP and WSB, now under common ownership with Dorna’s parent company Bridgepoint, and the operational control of Dorna.
Several interesting quotes emerged, including:
- “So finally the decision of Bridgepoint was to maintain two championships, two separate championships as two [...]

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[CliffC]

We probably ain't going to recognize Moto GP in the neaqr future, if it is there at all.

[stevegrab]

We probably ain't going to recognize Moto GP in the neaqr future, if it is there at all.

Didn't mean this to sound argumentative or confrontational, just curious what you meant and what developments you believe are coming that would result in that unrecognizable factor.

What do you mean? Do you have some thoughts on what direction MotoGP will go in, and how that will affect our ability to recognize it?

I've only been following MC road racing since the late 90s, so I saw the end of the 2 stroke era, and those nasty uncontrollable bikes that often spit riders off. (Still nothing as bad as some of the 70s & 80s superbike racing with top stars like Kenny Roberts saying how the bikes scared him to death.) Then we went to 4 strokes, first 800cc I think, then 1000, then back to 800. The other 2 strokes eventually went away, replaced by larger 4 stroke production engines making similar power, either as spec engines (Moto 2 Honda 600cc) or from various suppliers (Moto 3, 250cc I think with more than one engine maker).

Do you think that MotoGP could end up with some more spec equipment, like engines etc. That would seem strange as the manufacturers would essentially drop out, or use some shared engine platform to develop their own bikes (chassis/frame, suspsension, etc.) A Honda engine in a Ducati or Yamaha bike? That would truly be different and in the unrecognizable category. I just have a hard time seeing that happening.

Otherwise, I'm sure we'll continue to see more changes to reduce cost so more teams can be involved, and we don't have a MotoGP grid of only 10-12 bikes (the reason behind the CRT stuff).

It is sad that a once proud series now has several key manufacturers out of the series (Yamaha, Suzuki, Aprilia, BMW) with only 3 remaining (Honda, Yamaha & Ducati).

[CliffC]

Steve, I apologize for the late reply. I probably should not post as I am not on the forum often. Essentially I feel that the low factory participation in MotoGP is the reason for the talk of MotoGP and World Superbike coming under one umbrella. The CRT "spec" bikes being run now in MotoGP are a harbinger of things to come. They are versions of superbikes themselves as compared to the prototype MotoGP bikes.

MotoGP is popular, but very expensive. The CRT bikes were added just to try to get a decent grid for TV.

Now look at World Superbike. Many more teams, bikes, on the grid, and decent competition albeit weighted to the Euro somewhat.

I look for some nature of a merging of the two shows. I hope some semblance of GP will be retained, but we will have to see. It has waxed and waned before, and let us hope for a recovery , but it will take a better economy for the factories to all play at full strength. All just pondering on my part. I am pretty much out of touch with it any more.