Although Ezpeleta is confident...
Although Ezpeleta is confident that no one else will pull out of MotoGP, he shouldn't be; Suzuki and Honda seriously thought about following Kawasaki's lead in withdrawing from the series, but decided against it.
"To put a limit on motorcycle electronics is proper," Domenicali said. "In fact, we're discussing a series of things that aren't only on the bikes, so that they won't expand—always to in some way limit the teams' costs. On the other hand, everything that in one way or another is connected to increasing the competence of these manufacturers for the production bikes and that has an effect on safety—traction control, for example—are things that are quite difficult to think about removing from the championship, because in bikes, we have safety in this sport as a value to transmit. Motorcycling today in its maximum expression—the MotoGP championship—has important connections to safety: All of the work that's been done on the circuits, the protective apparel, and also the evolution of the motorcycle controls gives us a championship that offers values from that point of view, and also a safer spectacle. I would be quite worried to remove anything that made the bikes more dangerous."
Kawasaki hastily returned...
Kawasaki hastily returned to the MotoGP paddock in a more subdued role at the Qatar pre-season test, with only one rider (Marco Melandri) riding under the "Hayate Racing" banner. The team is run by former Kawasaki MotoGP director Ichiro Yoda.
As important as saving money is saving the championship. Domenicali admits that last year there were races that were "defined as boring, and other races that were extremely exciting, with the same formula—the same type of championship and the same bikes. So honestly, it's difficult for me to understand or to think of modifying the technical rules that will increase the spectacle of the races. Today we have in this championship, not only bikes, but the riders are certainly the best riders in the world, and probably the top riders have a capacity to interpret these bikes that is quite higher than average. So this is [where] we see the most important difference.