So, it’s Saturday, and there’s still no sign of the promised announcement from Suzuki about its MotoGp plans (if any). But there’s plenty of movement in other areas of the paddock. In contrast to the rumours earlier on in the year that Jorge Martinez would be upping the ante in 2012 and going for a 2-bike team, it seems that that may be happening but in a most unexpected way. Unable to reach agreement with Ducati over the supply of a bike/s for 2012 (Martinez even went as far as suggesting that the team would be happy with Rossi cast-offs from 2011), Aspar has announced that he has parted company with Bologna and will be running a single-bike CRT team next year. Already in negotiation with Suter for a chassis and both BMW and Aprilia for an engine, Martinez’s move is a two-edged sword. On the one hand it reduces the pool of genuine MotoGp bike in the field for 2012, but, on the other, it starts to give SOME sort of credibility to the CRT idea which is presently floundering and looking like sinking without a trace.
IF Suzuki decide not to stay, that reduces the field to 14 “real” GP bikes. Already now we hear rumours that Gresini is likely to cut back to one GP bike for Simoncelli and to run a CRT bike for its second entry (probably with Aoyama, for political rather than performance reasons) So, we’d be down to 13 “real” bikes.
PRAMAC is also said to be cutting back to a 1-bike team for 2012, so that takes it down to 12.
AND we have already heard that HRC has been told that it must cut 30% from its racing budget. How much longer can they continue to supply the teams that they are presently supplying?
SOOOO, we’re looking at probably the biggest crisis that the sport has faced in quite some time. With shrinking fields of genuine, competitive bikes, a POSSIBLE increase in grid numbers by padding it out with CRT bikes that will get blown into the weeds the moment the flag drops (IF the category gets off the ground at ALL), the FIM must soon look at the future of MotoGp as a category and take some pretty hard decisions as to what it can do to save the category and have it continue to be the blue riband class of world motorcycle racing. The crown is slipping, let’s hope they catch it in time.
Overnight (well, yesterday for we who live in the same time zone as the event) Casey Stoner picked up right where we expected him to, laying down fastest times in both Free Practice sessions. And, at Portimao, newly-crowned WSBK Champion, Carlos Checa grabbed provisional pole for the last WSBK event of the year. Despite winning the championship for the factory team, Checa finds himself in the unusual position of not having a contract for 2012 and he is reportedly being chased by the BMW Italia outfit for next year. The team is said to have close to a million euros in the kitty to attract the right rider.