Interview: Dorna’s Carmelo Ezpeleta
Henny Ray Abrams | January 26, 2012
The 2012 MotoGP season will be the end of an era if Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta has his way.
The expressive Spaniard responsible for the MotoGP World Championships has been forced by the global economic turndown, and the effect on sponsorship, to find a way to make racing more affordable. The solution is the Claiming Rules Teams (CRT) concept, motorcycles built with prototype frames and hopped-up production engines. The 2012 MotoGP grid will have nine CRT machines racing along with 12 prototypes. In 2013, Ezpeleta wants to see more CRT bikes at an affordable cost, while slowing down the prototypes.
How well this will go over with the factories that have invested millions of dollars in the 1000cc prototypes remains to be seen. Ezpeleta has met with Ducati and Honda, and expects to meet with Yamaha shortly. What he’s heard is that the factories understand the problem, but need time to develop parameters for the 2013 machines. Ezpeleta would like an answer by May.
To read the rest of the interview, visit this week’s Cycle News at the following link:
http://cyclenews.coverleaf.com/cyclenews/20120121#pg69