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On Wednesday, we told you about Yamaha’s struggling sales in the US market for its large displacement machines, with several bikes from several categories showing lackluster results over the last 12 months. We told this story first, because it frames a series of future stories about Yamaha Motor USA, and today is a continuation of that narrative.

As such, Asphalt & Rubber has learned that Yamaha plans to move its corporate headquarters out of Cypress, California – the epicenter of the motorcycle industry – and relocate to the other side of the country, setting up shop just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. The primary driver for this move? Costs.

The War on Wings continues. At Qatar, the Grand Prix Commission agreed to ban winglets in the Moto2 and Moto3.

The aerodynamic devices are banned immediately in Moto2, while they will be banned in Moto3 from 2017 onward, as Mahindra have already fitted small winglets to their Moto3 machine to be used at some races this season.

However, the ban on winglets for 2017 should stop development of them immediately.

The ban has no effect on MotoGP, however. There are powerful moves to try to ban the winglets in MotoGP, but they face resistance from the manufacturers.

This is because one of the conditions under which the factories accepted the switch to the common software was that the technical regulations would remain stable for the coming five years, the usual time period for technical regulations to last.

However, the appearance of winglets and strakes on the MotoGP bikes has triggered fears of a spending war on aerodynamics between the factories.

At Assen, Dorna, the FIM and IRTA held a joint press conference announcing their plans for the future of the championship.

From 2017, they told the media, the MotoGP teams would receive 30% more money from Dorna, factories would have to make bikes available to satellite teams, all 24 riders will receive financial support from the organizers, and Dorna would retain the right to buy the grid slots of the two riders who finish last in the championship.

For Asphalt & Rubber readers, this is nothing new. We reported on this back in May, after the Jerez round of MotoGP.

Only a few details have changed in the intervening period, but those changes are worthy of comment. And it is important to note that the new regime starts from 2017, with 2016 being a transitional year. So what will the future of MotoGP look like? Here’s an overview.

Honda have been officially confirmed as the single-engine supplier for the Moto2 class for another four years. In other words, Honda will make engines available to ExternPro, who manages the official Moto2 engines, until the end of the 2018 season.

The confirmation of Honda as official engine supplier means that Moto2 is to remain a single engine class until at least 2018. The chances of it changing after that are very slim, despite occasional expressions of interest from other manufacturers, such as KTM.

The news that KTM would be building a MotoGP machine has been public since the beginning of August. In an interview with the German website Speedweek, KTM CEO Stefan Pierer confirmed that the Austrian manufacturer would be building a V4 MotoGP machine ready for the 2017 season.

KTM’s MotoGP plans were confirmed again last weekend at Misano. KTM’s head of motorsport Pit Beirer told the MotoGP.com website that they would indeed be building a MotoGP bike, and that work on the machine had already started.

The bike, Beirer told MotoGP.com, would be a V4, would use a steel trellis frame, just as their Moto3 machines do, and would be kitted with WP suspension. Design work on the bike was already underway, with the bike scheduled to make its debut on track “at the end of next summer,” Beirer said.

There would be no prospect of an early entry, however. The bike is to be prepared for the 2017 season, with testing going on from late 2015 onwards. The bike would be designed around the Michelin tires, which will be replacing Bridgestone as the spec tire from 2016 onwards.

The bike would also be designed with the spec electronics and unified software package in mind, which is also to be compulsory from the 2016 season.

Speaking during an interview with the company’s corporate blog, KTM CEO Stefan Pierer spoke his mind about the current state of international road racing, and KTM’s involvement with both the MotoGP and World Superbike Championships, and their support classes.

Stating that MotoGP lacked any return for the massive monetary investment it would require from the Austrian manufacturer, Pierer did go on to later to praise the Moto2 format as one that he would like to see KTM to compete in, with some changes of course.

The FIM, Dorna & MSMA have been able to come to an accord on the new rules for the World Superbike Championship, and the name of the game is cost reduction.

In a series of changes that will begin in 2014, and applied over the next three seasons, WSBK will see a price cap for the teams’ race motorcycles and their components (rumored to be €250,000).

A maximum number of engines will also be set for each rider, a rule that has already been implemented in MotoGP with a great deal of success.

The last provision seems to be a guarantee from the manufacturers that a minimum number of motorcycles “with the same state of tuning” will be made available to teams for lease or purchase, though this provision doesn’t seem to distinguish from factory and satellite spec machinery.

The brief announcement from World Superbikes is after the jump.

With MotoGP scheduled to race in Argentina in 2014, the MotoGP teams will be heading down to the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit between the Assen and Sachsenring races in July to conduct a two-day test at the track, as well as take part in a number of promotional activities.

The test, to be organized by Dorna, will see a number of teams participate, with Dorna announcing that teams representing the three factories racing in MotoGP will at least be present at the circuit. Exactly which teams will attend is not entirely clear. The press release is worded vaguely, saying only that Honda, Yamaha, and Ducati teams will be present.

Fresh on the heels of the news that Honda would continue to supply Moto2 with spec-engines through the 2015 season, Yamaha has confirmed that it will lease to MotoGP teams its YZR-M1 engine, on an annual basis, through the 2016 season.

Teams will then be free to develop their own bikes around the engine, or work with an independent chassis manufacturer to build a complete race bike.

With the first full test for the World Superbike class behind us, and the first test of the MotoGP grid about to get underway at Sepang at the end of this week, it is time to take a look at motorcycle racing’s pre-season, and evaluate where we stand so far. Just what is the state of play for both MotoGP and World Superbike in 2013?

The question is even more pertinent now that both series have been taken under the wing of Dorna, much to the consternation of World Superbike fans and, to some extent, the WSBK paddock as well. It was feared that Dorna would either kill off World Superbike entirely to strengthen the position of MotoGP, or impose such stringent technical regulations on the series as to dumb it down to Superstock spec.

Fortunately, neither of those options looks likely. World Superbikes will continue as a separate series, Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta was keen to explain when quizzed about the takeover at Ducati’s Wrooom launch event early in January. The aim is to build a strong WSBK series to stand alongside MotoGP, preserving the unique identity of the two series – WSBK as a place to race production bikes, MotoGP as the series for racing prototypes.

But exactly how should the phrase “production bikes” be interpreted? As a hotted up version of the road-going model, as is the intention of Superstock, or as a genuine racing machine built using the production bike as a basis, which is much closer to what some regard as the ethos of WSBK? The answer, it appears, will lie somewhere in the middle, and the factories will have a major say in how this all turns out.

The Philip Morris-sponsored Wrooom event is not just the event at which Ducati launches its MotoGP season, it has also become the de facto kick off to the MotoGP season as a whole.

With an important section of the international media present, Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta inevitably seizes the opportunity to talk to the press about his view of the season ahead, and where necessary, of the future beyond that.

This year was little different. Ezpeleta spoke to the media ahead of the presentation by Ducati Corse boss Bernhard Gobmeier, and answered questions from a number of media outlets separately, answering questions on the future of both MotoGP and World Superbikes.

From his statements, a picture of Dorna’s vision for the two series starts to emerge: the future of world championship motorcycle racing is to be price-limited, with more support for the current teams, and factories holding a stake in both series, in exchange for keeping a lid on costs.