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MotoGP: Private Tests Banned, Moto3 Engine Costs Curbed

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With the MotoGP paddock once again assembled for the start of the season at Qatar, the four organizations who make up the Grand Prix Commission, MotoGP’s rulemaking body, took the opportunity to meet, discuss, and adopt a number of rule changes. The rules cover a number of areas, including testing for all three classes, the 2014 technical rules for MotoGP, and further steps to control the real cost of engines in Moto3.

The most significant part of the press release is perhaps also the least obvious. The GPC confirmed the 2014 technical regulations previously agreed upon, after Dorna received assurances – and detailed proposals – that the manufacturers were prepared to supply private teams with affordable machinery. The news that Yamaha has agreed to lease engines to teams was the final piece in the puzzle which ensured that the rule package for 2014 would be adopted.

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MotoGP: New Rules for 2013 & 2014 – Penalty Points, Quickshifters, Cost Caps for Parts, Flags on Dashes & More

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Following its meeting last week, today the GP Commission has released a bevy of rules for the 2013 & 2014 MotoGP Championship. An interesting mix of rules that stem from issues had this past season, the GP Commission has also drafted some regulations that aim at further reducing the cost of the sport.

For starters, Race Direction now has a penalty point system at its disposal, which can be used to address riders who are continually being warned of unsafe behavior. The points accumulate over the course of the season, and have thresholds with escalating consequences. If that doesn’t make your eyes roll and your mouth mutter “Marc Marquez” then Moto2’s new quickshifter approval rule probably will.

While all three classes will see a number of provisions to help control costs, the most interesting is the capping of brake and suspension prices, which will see the cost of service contracts also limited. The latter point is especially important, as parts suppliers have gotten around previous caps by merely rolling the lost costs into extremely expensive servicing fees and agreements.

On a more geeky and technical note, an optional in 2013, mandatory in 2014, in-dash flagging system will be put in place. Presumably useful for all situations, the system sounds like a direct response to Jorge Lorenzo’s complaints after crashing in Valenica while going through lapped traffic. The full list of new rules is after the jump.

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New MotoGP Rules for 2014: Spec-ECU, Spec-Software, Fewer Motors, Less Fuel, & Combined Weight for Moto2

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After an almost interminable period of discussions and debate, agreement has at last been reached over the technical regulations to be applied in MotoGP for the 2014 onwards. The agreement has been a compromise, with both sides of the table being given something to satisfy them.

The new rules see the introduction of a compulsory spec ECU and datalogger, and the ECU now acts as a divide between the two classes of teams in the paddock. MSMA members will be allowed to use their own software for the spec ECU, but the punishment for doing so will be a reduction in the fuel limit from 21 to 20 liters for a race.

Teams electing to use the spec software supplied by Dorna will be allowed 24 liters. The MSMA members will also be limited to 5 engines a season, while the rest will be allowed 12 engines. The reduction in fuel and engines was made at the request of the factories, to give themselves an engineering challenge to conquer.

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Friday Summary at Valencia: Of Dr. Marquez and Mr. Hyde, Bumpy Tracks, & Leasing Yamaha Engines

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If there is one rider in the entire MotoGP paddock who recalls the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it is Marc Marquez. Around the paddock, speaking to the press, at public appearances, the Spaniard is soft-spoken, polite, friendly. When he speaks, he speaks only in commonplaces, his media training having expunged any trace of opinion or controversy from his speech (in either English or Spanish). Put him on a bike, however, and the beast is unleashed. He is merciless, in his speed, in his ownership of the track, and in his disregard of anyone else on the track.

So it was unsurprising that the Spaniard should find himself in trouble once again. During the afternoon practice, Marquez slotted his bike underneath an unsuspecting Simone Corsi going into turn 10, sending the Italian tumbling through the gravel in the process.

The move was reminiscent of the incident at Motegi, where Marquez barged past Mika Kallio with similar disregard for the consequences, but unlike Motegi, this time Marquez received a penalty from Race Direction, for contravening section 1.21.2, a section Marquez by now must now almost by heart. That part of the Sporting Regulations which governs ‘riding in a responsible manner which does not cause danger to other competitors’. For his sins, Marquez is to start from the back of the grid on Sunday, regardless of where he qualifies.

The punishment has been coming for a while. Race Direction has been working this year on taking previous behavior into account, and that, above all, was the reason for Marquez to have his wrist slapped.

The list of incidents involving Marquez is long: starting with the collision with Thomas Luthi in the very first race at Qatar; the clash with Pol Espargaro at Barcelona, causing Espargaro to crash out; the collision with Kallio at Motegi; and now this incident with Corsi at Valencia. There were numerous other minor incidents in which Marquez featured, the Barcelona incident, for example, coming at the end of a race which had seen a fair smattering of other questionable moves.

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Thursday Summary at Valencia: Of Anticipation, Determination, Preparation, & New Rules for 2014

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The atmosphere in the paddock at Valencia is an odd mixture of fatigue, excitement and anticipation. Fatigue, because it is the end of a long season, and the teams and riders are barely recovered from the three back-to-back flyaway rounds; excitement, because this is the last race of the year, and the last chance to shine, and for some, the last chance to impress a team sufficiently to secure a ride next year; and anticipation, because with so many riders switching brands and classes, they are already thinking about the test to come on Tuesday.

Or in Casey Stoner’s case, thinking about a future outside of MotoGP. As his departure from the championship grows near, it is clear that he has had more than enough of the series. Asked if he was worried about the politics in V8 Supercars, where he is headed in the near future, he said he wasn’t, because he understood that V8 Supercars is a different kind of championship.

MotoGP, though, was supposed to be a professional championship, and in his opinion, it was ‘a joke’. Four races in Spain, another just over the border in Portugal, this was not a truly world championship, Stoner said. Instead, MotoGP is too much of a European championship, and it needed to rediscover its roots.

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MotoGP: New Qualifying Format for 2013

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Qualifying for the MotoGP class is to undergo a shake-up starting from next year. Instead of the current one-hour qualifying format, two sessions of 15 minutes will settle the starting grid, with the riders divided into two groups on the basis of their combined times through the three sessions of free practice.

The new system is a hybrid of the current system and the superpole format used by World Superbikes and Formula One. An intial selection will be made on the basis of the combined times of the first three sessions of free practice, with the 10 fastest riders going straight through to QP2, with the rest left to fight it out in QP1.

The 2 fastest riders in the 15-minute QP1 session will go through to QP2. The original 10 fastest from free practice will be joined by the 2 fastest from QP1 to fight it out for the top 12 grid positions in the 15-minute QP2 session. To compensate for the shortened qualifying sessions, a 30-minute-long fourth session of free practice will added before qualifying starts.

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Official: MotoGP Drops Rookie Rule & Single-Bike Rule – But Restrictions On Factory Bikes Introduced

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Much was expected of this Friday’s meeting of the Grand Prix Commission, but in the end, the decisions taken were relatively minor. Dorna, IRTA, the FIM, and the MSMA agreed on a number of proposals which had widely been expected, but made no real progress on the major rule changes expected for the 2014 or 2015 season.

The rule change with the biggest immediate impact was the dropping of the Rookie Rule, as we reported during the Silverstone round of MotoGP. The dropping of the Rookie Rule, which prevents new entries into the MotoGP class from going straight to a factory team, opens the way for Marc Marquez to join the factory Repsol Honda team next season. Contrary to popular opinion, however, the rule was not dropped at the request of HRC, but rather of the Honda satellite teams themselves, both Lucio Cecchinello and Fausto Gresini fearing the disruption that Marquez would bring for just a single year.

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No MotoGP Rev Limit Until 2014

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Jerez saw another round in the game of bluff poker being played between Dorna and the manufacturers over the future of MotoGP’s rules, and both sides took another step closer to an agreement. Reports emanating from the discussions suggest that Dorna has made a concession to the MSMA over the rev limits, while the factories are pushing through a single-bike rule, and an agreement should be ready by the middle of the year.

Ever since the MSMA lost their monopoly over the rules at the end of 2011, when the contract between the MSMA and Dorna lapsed, Dorna has had the stronger hand, and Carmelo Ezpeleta has been pushing the factories hard for changes. The pressure is starting to pay off for Ezpeleta, as by a combination of cajoling, threats and promises, he has also reached an agreement over the future shape of the sport. MotoGP is to undergo a radical transformation from the pure technology exercise that was the 800cc era, and become a sport focused on entertainment, where costs are kept in check.

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Why the MotoGP Weight Limit Was Changed

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The weight increase in the MotoGP class introduced for 2012 – from 153kg, as originally agreed when the 2012 regulations were drawn up back in August 2010, to 157kg – has had many repercussions. The addition of 4kg to the 1000cc MotoGP machines has been blamed for causing the chatter that Honda’s RC213V suffers from, and for complicating the pursuit of the ideal weight distribution for both Honda and Yamaha, which the two Japanese factories had spent most of 2011 perfecting ahead of the 2012 MotoGP season.

The decision was taken in a Grand Prix Commission meeting held on December 14th of 2011 in Madrid, and though it drew little comment at the time, once the MotoGP paddock reassembled at Sepang for the first test of the year, some intriguing details started to appear. Crash.net’s Peter McLaren has an excellent reconstruction of the decision process, from which it is clear that the path to adoption the proposal faced was far more complex than usual. It also reveals some of the underlying tensions in both the Grand Prix Commission and the MSMA which will go on to play a major role in the rule-making process for 2013 and beyond.

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Moto3 Technical Regulations Released

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Two-stroke racing has been living in a four-stroke world, and the death blow to the smokers in GP racing has already been dealt by the GP Racing Commission. With 2012 set to see Moto3 replace 125GP as MotoGP’s introductory class, the FIM has released the full technical specifications of the up-coming, 2500cc, single-cylinder, four-stroke racing class. Designed not only to bring GP racing into the 21st century, Moto3 also aims to end the Aprilia domination that’s currently taking place in the class’s two-stroke predecessor. With companies like Honda and KTM building complete Moto3 machines, and engineering firms like Kalex working on custom chassis for the prototype 250cc engines, there certainly looks to be a bit of diversity coming to the introductory GP series.

Another issue plaguing 125GP, and GP racing as a whole, is the rising costs of competing in the sport, as evidenced by the diminishing grid size in MotoGP. With Moto2 boasting a healthy 40 bike grid, Dorna and IRTA believe they have found the secret recipe to making prototype racing work, and have applied that methodology to the new Moto3 class. Unsurprisingly then, the vast majority of Moto3’s technical regulations concern keeping costs down, especially when it comes to the series’ claiming-rule style engine & parts restrictions. It’s actually interesting to read the level of detail the GP Commission has gone through in order to head-off attempts to circumnavigate the spirit of the cheaper four-stroke series, though we might point out that water always finds its level. Check out the full Moto3 technical regulations after the jump.

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GP Commission Modifies 2011 Rules

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The GP Commission has seen it fit to modify the rules for MotoGP, Moto2, and 125GP during the 2011 season, with perhaps the biggest alteration coming in the form of FP3 being reinstated to the Saturday schedule. For MotoGP, all practice and qualifying sessions will be returned to their one hour format (up from 45 minutes), which should make the sessions more useful for teams who has to scramble to make changes during the 45 minute format (Moto2 and 125GP will remain at 45 minute session). All the classes will see a three-wide grid format, which should be especially interesting in the compacted Moto2 field. All teams will also be allowed the use of generators on the starting grid.

Special for MotoGP, Dorna seems intent on limiting the level of electronics being used in the premiere class, and has inserted a provision that says that “in MotoGP, only the GPS provided by Dorna is permitted.” Currently MotoGP teams employ GPS systems that know which turn, and where in each turn, the bike is, and adjusts the bike’s suspension, engine map, and other settings for that corresponding section of the track.

While hyper-precise GPS systems could shave tenths of seconds off lap times, they also create an arms race in electronic controls, which in-turn raises the costs of racing. With Dorna supplying the unit, or failing to provide a GPS entirely (plot twist!), the use of such advanced electronics could no longer exist in 2011.

In addition to these provisions, Dorna has also requested applications for the 2012 Moto3 ECU supplier. Find the full release on the technical regulations and specifications after the jump.

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