World Superbike champ Ben Spies and MotoGP World champ Valentino Rossi (Photo: Yamaha Racing)

Valentino Rossi was speaking for every MotoGP rider, it seems, when he said that the switch from 990cc to 800cc was “the biggest mistake of the last 15 years in MotoGP.”

That change, intended to slow the bikes down, resulted in vastly increased costs (to build, test, develop, and race new bikes) and did not slow down the bikes or even increase lap times. These high-revving little bikes have surpassed the trap speeds of the old 990cc bikes and, with the help of sticky Bridgestone 'control tires,' produce significantly higher corner speeds.

The narrow power bands of the 800cc bikes have made electronics more and more important to the extent that riders now complain that processional racing is produced by the predictability and repeatability of lap times.

As Dani Pedrosa said in Valencia, “Once you have the bike set up to sustain a certain pace, you can hold that pace over the entire race. That means you either slowly pull away or are slowly left behind and there is not much you can do to overcome it. If 1000cc bikes come back they will be welcomed by all of us, certainly by me.”

Traditionalists will lament “the death of prototype racing,” but prototypes will not be outlawed. Likewise, those who want to return to the days before intrusive rider aids (especially traction control) will celebrate these changes -- but electronics will not be restricted. What will probably happen, at least initially, is that the bigger engines will offer the kind of wider power band that will allow riders to override the bikes -- slide them if they need to in order to get them turned and to fire them out of corners. This should, it is hoped, return us to a situation where riders are able to overcome the limitations of traction control and make full use of the power available.