IRTA

The Grand Prix Commission, MotoGP's ruling body, met at Brno today, and as expected, they finalized the demise of the two-stroke engine from Grand Prix racing. As of 2012, the 125cc class is to be replaced by Moto3, a 250cc single-cylinder four-stroke engine, with a maximum bore of 81mm.

Unlike Moto2, however, the class will not use a spec engine, but instead will use rules to help keep costs down. Any manufacturer building a Moto3 engine must sell it at 10,000 euros or less, and be prepared to supply at least 15 riders. The idea is to prevent factories from pouring large amounts of resources into engine development, and then making it available to only one or two teams, thus assuring themselves of the valuable publicity that a certain victory would provide. More than one manufacturer has already shown an interest in the class, though the requirement to supply at least 15 riders becomes a little difficult to enforce as more manufacturers get involved. After all, if there are 4 manufacturers and 32 riders on the grid, it is hard to test whether they are all willing to supply 15 riders if the interest in the engines is divided equally among the various teams.

With the success of the switch from the 250cc class to the four-stroke Moto2 formula - in terms of cost, and certainly in terms of grid size - the many fans of the two-stroke engine have been fearing the worst: the disappearance of the last two-stroke formula from the MotoGP paddock. At Assen, news is unofficially emerging that their fears have been confirmed. For the members of the Grand Prix commission are close to an agreement on replacing the 125cc class, and the bad news for two-stroke enthusiasts is that the smallest of the Grand Prix classes is about to turn four stroke.

From 2012 - or possibly 2013, according to some rumors - the 125s will be replaced with a 250cc four-stroke single. Contrary to earlier reports, though, the bikes will not be based on the existing four-stroke engines being used in motocross bikes such as Yamaha's YZ250F or Honda's CRF250R. The engines will have a maximum bore of 81 millimeters, making for much higher-revving short-stroke motors. 

On the Saturday of the Jerez MotoGP weekend, the Grand Prix Commission met to further hammer out the regulations which will govern the MotoGP class from the 2012 season. It was feared that the meeting would fail to come up with a clear definition of the bikes to be run by the Claiming Rule Teams, the privateer teams expected to enter MotoGP with production-based engines in prototype chassis. So it came as no surprise that the minutes of the press release of the Grand Prix Commission merely modified the penalty for using an extra engine in the 2010 season, dropping it from 20 seconds to 10.

MotoMatters.com was interested to find out why the Grand Prix Commission had not had anything to say about the 2012 regulations, and so we caught up with IRTA's representative on the GP Commission, Herve Poncharal. When we put it to the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha boss that it was a little strange that the MSMA (the manufacturer's association, who are charged with drawing up the technical regulations) had yet to produce a definition of a Claiming Rule Team bike, Poncharal said that this was not a problem, as the rules already defined the basics of the bikes: 1000cc engine, 81mm maximum bore, 24 liters of fuel and 12 engines to last the season. But how do we define a Claiming Rule team, we asked Poncharal.

MotoGP's rule-making body, the Grand Prix Commission met today, and as expected, did nothing to clarify the 2012 MotoGP rules, and especially to provide a definition of exactly what constitutes a Claiming Rule Team. Instead, what they came up with was a relaxation of the penalty for infringing the engine allocation rules: Instead of starting from the pit lane 20 seconds after the red lights go out for the start, any rider using a 7th (or 8th, or 9th) engine during the 2010 season will have to start just 10 seconds later.

During the evening rider debrief, one senior journalist asked Nicky Hayden what he thought about the rule, and his answers surprised the journalists present. "Well, it depends where it happens," Hayden said. "If you were at Le Mans, you'd be way back. But start at the end of the pit lane at Sepang, and you'd be right there!" The Ducati Marlboro mulled the question a little more, telling reporters "I'm just going through them all in my mind," before going on to say that starting from the pit lane at Laguna Seca would allow riders to cut out all of Turn 1 and most of Turn 2. The other US Grand Prix would be less fortuitous, however. "Indy would be terrible, you've got a tight little hairpin [on the exit to pit lane]."

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.