Pre-season testing is well under way at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia. With day two in the books, MotoGP.com posted a brief video interview with Carmelo Ezpelata after meeting with the manufacturers both individually and as a group. The consensus is that the MSMA seem extremely nervous about CRT bikes taking over the grid in the upcoming couple of years. It seems justified seeing how quickly race teams adopted the platform knowing full well that they’d have a very hard time being competitive with the prototypes of the factories.
During the meetings the MSMA voiced their concerns about CRT, spec ECUs and rev limits and also expressed their desire to keep the class prototype based. Ezpelata expressed that they understand the issue with costs being too high and they adjourned with the understanding that each of the manufacturers will come back to the governing body with proposals to keep the prototypes and control costs for smaller satellite outfits.
It seems as though the series is definitely at a crossroads where something needs to change. As of the end of day two of testing, it seems that out of the CRT efforts Aprilia is the only one that has any chance of being competitive. The Kawasaki powered bikes are over 9 seconds off the pace, while the sole BMW powered Suter(ridden by the very capable Colin Edwards) is roughly 5 seconds off the front. If the CRT bikes won’t be able to come within the 107% rule this all might go back to square one.
Let’s hope that they can come to some sort of agreement that will keep the racing exciting and still give us mere mortals technology to drool over.
Posted in: Racing
