1000cc in 2012

[zooom]

I personally would rather see WSBK step up to the top rung. 

IMHO...given the way GP has been in processional arrangement...WSBK is the top rung when it comes to seeing "competition"

MotoGP could be the premiere class again, IF, they had bigger grids and more riders able to run up front and PURE prototype bikes without spec parts and teams with UNLIMITED budgets.
Why do any of the manufacturers go racing, image. If you want to run with the big boys it costs big money, just ask Ferrari or Mercedes Benz about their F1 teams budgets. 

so what you are saying is that it is about buying a championship and there should be no small budget giant killers?!?!?!....the manufacturers go racing now to develop technology for the implement in homologated bikes that hit the street...look at the crossplane R1, the technology that hit the 1199, the traction controls that now seem to adorn all street liter bike class superbikes and some various other machines, and so forth....in days of old...yes, GP racing was for the prestige and image...and it still is to a degree...but the benefit of using an R&D budget for racing is to trickle down the tech to the common man eventually...

It serves the manufacturers, the racing is close, the talent is deep and the grids are full. You can pretend to have Carlos Checca's Ducati in your garage and the budgets being smaller mean more teams can compete. For the price of a MotoGP team you could probably run a 3 bike WSBK squad. Fan access is better and the 2 race format means a whole day of racing, not just 45 minutes. 

it serves the fans and promoters and sponsors just as much as the manufacturers to have a grid that is full...and that reinforces the "Win on Sunday, Buy on Monday" mentality that needs to happen for to keep the whole cycle alive....and the fact that it now seems in WSBK that really and truly any machine brand has the potential to be on the podium, or even the top step, makes it even more attractive to all...

[Triple J]

I don't get the argument that they're not prototypes.  

Can you buy a Desmosedici with a twin spar aluminum frame...or any Ducati with that frame? Nope. How about an M1? How about any Yamaha with a dry clutch? Nope and nope. How about a bike by anyone that tracks your position by GPS and adjusts the fuel settings accordingly? Nope. The list goes on.

Of course they're prototypes. Just because their development is restricted by a few rules doesn't mean they aren't one-off bikes. While I don't like the tire rules, all the bikes running the same tires doesn't mean they aren't prototypes. Same goes for the fuel limits and the engine reliability requirements. Even if they move towards a spec ecu (which likely would follow the F1 sandbox formula)...the bikes, and most of the electronics, would still be prototype.

[duccarlos]

You can buy the GP11.

MotoGP is a spec series that develops technology that is readily not available. I will give you an apples to apples comparion with F1. ECU is used in F1 to control a specific rule, the use of traction control. ECU in MotoGP is used to bring the manufacturers down to the same level as the CRT bikes. The only way you can convince me otherwise is if they create a new rule, like no traction control, that would require the use of a standard ECU.

[triangleforge]

Those of you who are saying 'no limits' or 'nearly no limits'.... how do you propose to make that concept economically feasible?

If you want to limit costs, limit budgets. Period. Sure, it'd be difficult to enforce and teams would cheat like crazy (just like in every single other motorsport category), but the fact is the sideways attempts to limit the cost of a MotoGP effort have had exactly the opposite effect - they've made fielding a team MORE expensive. How much do you think Ducati has spent trying to come to terms with the Bridgestones, compared with what they'd spend to figure out what tire actually worked best with the bike they want to build? Or how much more teams are spending to deal with the engine limits instead of just building fresh motors? How much have all the teams spent trying to get maximum power out of the fuel allotment instead of just burning a few more liters of racing gas?

I would submit that all these oblique efforts to "cut costs" have actually put a MotoGP effort out of the financial reach of any of the potential small budget giant-killers that might be out there - can you imagine John Britten or Michael Czysz coming in with an outside-the-box idea, and then having to spend millions to cram it back inside the various spec tire, spec ECU, engine number limit, fuel limit, and whatever-the-hell-is-coming-next-year boxes?

Regulate what you want to regulate instead of being surprised that your oblique efforts to get at a problem through craftiness and excessive cleverness end up doing the opposite of what you intend.

[Triple J]

You can buy the GP11.

They are selling their 2 actual race bikes. 2 people (with loads of money) can buy them. That doesn't mean they aren't prototype.

[Triple J]

Regulate what you want to regulate instead of being surprised that your oblique efforts to get at a problem through craftiness and excessive cleverness end up doing the opposite of what you intend.

I'd argue that this isn't possible. No matter what you regulate, engineers will try to find a work around. It's the nature of racing.

[duccarlos]

Correct, and we benefit from it.

[triangleforge]

I'd argue that this isn't possible. No matter what you regulate, engineers will try to find a work around. It's the nature of racing.

I neglected to add "Or don't regulate it." I just think that if money is the root problem, find a way to go after that. It's like trying to turn an ocean liner by seeding the clouds a thousand miles away in hopes of affecting the path of ocean currents.

[fastwin]

If you want to limit costs, limit budgets. Period. Sure, it'd be difficult to enforce and teams would cheat like crazy (just like in every single other motorsport category), but the fact is the sideways attempts to limit the cost of a MotoGP effort have had exactly the opposite effect - they've made fielding a team MORE expensive. How much do you think Ducati has spent trying to come to terms with the Bridgestones, compared with what they'd spend to figure out what tire actually worked best with the bike they want to build? Or how much more teams are spending to deal with the engine limits instead of just building fresh motors? How much have all the teams spent trying to get maximum power out of the fuel allotment instead of just burning a few more liters of racing gas?

I would submit that all these oblique efforts to "cut costs" have actually put a MotoGP effort out of the financial reach of any of the potential small budget giant-killers that might be out there - can you imagine John Britten or Michael Czysz coming in with an outside-the-box idea, and then having to spend millions to cram it back inside the various spec tire, spec ECU, engine number limit, fuel limit, and whatever-the-hell-is-coming-next-year boxes?

Regulate what you want to regulate instead of being surprised that your oblique efforts to get at a problem through craftiness and excessive cleverness end up doing the opposite of what you intend.

What he said.

[wantingaduc]

so what you are saying is that it is about buying a championship and there should be no small budget giant killers?!?!?!....the manufacturers go racing now to develop technology for the implement in homologated bikes that hit the street...look at the crossplane R1, the technology that hit the 1199, the traction controls that now seem to adorn all street liter bike class superbikes and some various other machines, and so forth....in days of old...yes, GP racing was for the prestige and image...and it still is to a degree...but the benefit of using an R&D budget for racing is to trickle down the tech to the common man eventually...

When has there ever been small budget giant killers? Ducati won a MotoGP world championship, and they're a small company, but small budget and MotoGP racing are not terms that co-exist in the same world, not if you want to be competative.
The technology is being developed because it's what these companies do. Honda has developed a lot of thechnology that has trickeled to street bikes that wasn't introduced in MotoGP. Actually most of that technology was developed for automotive use and then adapted to bikes afterward.
That R&D money could be spent in WSBK too and with the same reults that would transfer to street bike applications as well if not better.

[wantingaduc]

Can you buy a Desmosedici with a twin spar aluminum frame...or any Ducati with that frame? Nope. How about an M1? How about any Yamaha with a dry clutch? Nope and nope.

Part of the reason manufacturers don't build these MotoGP replica bikes is that they're not economically viable. Even at 75k a pop I'll bet Ducati barely made money on the D16RR, which by the time they released it was old technology. Halo products like those are built to attract attention to the rest of a companies line up and to prove to the competition that they can build it, more then anything. If you could make heaps of money selling GP replica bikes, don't you think Honda or Yamaha, with their deep pockets, would have done so by now?
Oh and you can buy a Ducati street bike with the monocoque frame, just like Rossi used to ride...

[Triple J]

Part of the reason manufacturers don't build these MotoGP replica bikes is that they're not economically viable. Even at 75k a pop I'll bet Ducati barely made money on the D16RR, which by the time they released it was old technology. Halo products like those are built to attract attention to the rest of a companies line up and to prove to the competition that they can build it, more then anything. If you could make heaps of money selling GP replica bikes, don't you think Honda or Yamaha, with their deep pockets, would have done so by now?
Oh and you can buy a Ducati street bike with the monocoque frame, just like Rossi used to ride...

You missed my point. You can't go to the dealer and buy a MotoGP bike...hence they're prototypes, regardless of the rules in the race series they're in which limit aspects of their development. I agree on why no one makes them available, but that isn't the point. They aren't available, so the race bikes are prototypes.

Just because the 1199 has a monocoque frame doesn't make it a GP bike. Most everything else is still different. GP = prototype.

[wantingaduc]

You can't go to the dealer and buy a MotoGP bike...hence they're prototypes, regardless of the rules in the race series they're in which limit aspects of their development.

You cant go to the dealership, or the factory for that matter, and by an 1198 F10.
Does that make it a prototype too?
(and yes I know technically you can "buy" one, but do you know anyone, other then a well funded race team with a track record who actually has?)
Someone mentioned John Britten and MotoCyzst, to me those bikes were really prototypes.

[Triple J]

You cant go to the dealership, or the factory for that matter, and by an 1198 F10.
Does that make it a prototype too?

This is pointless. If you can't understand the difference between a professionaly race-prepped 1198, R1, CBR1000RR and those companies MotoGP bike then I don't know what to say.

...and actually I believe you can go to the factory and get one since WSBK teams are privateer. Hence the 1199RS delivered to a BSB team recently:
http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=55539.0

[wantingaduc]

If you can't understand the difference between a professionaly race-prepped 1198, R1, CBR1000RR and those companies MotoGP bike then I don't know what to say.

J,

The differences are very clear, but the point you seem to be making is that the fact that a MotoGP bike isn't offered for sale makes it a prototype, and that's not the case. "One off" bikes and things that NEVER see the light of day are really prototypes. MotoGP are extremely sophiscated test beds, but true prototype as DORNA would have us believe is mis-labeling them.

Prototype: "one of the first units manufactured of a product, which is tested so that the design can be changed if necessary before the product is manufactured commercially."
Privateer teams in racing are another grey area.
Checca's team is technically a "privateer team" but watcha  WSBK broadcast and the same guys that are at a MotoGP race are in his pit box.