Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa (Photo: Brian J Nelson)

Dorna has explored the possibility of limiting traction control by introducing a universal ECU as in Formula 1, but this may not be necessary and is certainly the one thing that the factories would object to. They argue that electronic rider aides are the future in safer road bikes and Dorna will not want to ever be seen taking actions that would reduce safety.

In fact, however, traction control was not such a big factor when the change from 500cc to MotoGP 990cc took place. There were significantly less crashes and less injuries (not withstanding of the death of Daijiro Kato at Suzuka in 2003) with the 990s not because of their electronics but because of their wide power bands and predictable power delivery. It was only with the introduction of the 800s with their narrower power band and hair trigger delivery that traction control became so vital.

Rossi has said that MotoGP needs to return to 1000cc and with much less traction control. On some occasions he has said that the amount of traction control should be reduced by 75% and other times he has said 50%. While the lessening importance of traction control will be difficult to express in percentages, it seems that the big engines will be less dependent for safety purposes on electronics.

But the main reasons for these changes is not to satisfy riders’ longing for wider power bands and hairier bikes, but simply because the MSMA, writing regulations prior to the crisis, can no longer afford to sustain racing under the rules they wrote. Some factories may continue to race prototypes. Others may find it more logical and affordable to race with production-derived engines.

Already it seems that Aprilia, the Italian factory that dropped out of MotoGP at the end of 2004, is planning to return with their RSV4 engine when the 1000cc rules are introduced. Under these rules factories like Aprilia (and BMW) currently racing in World Superbike can amortize racing costs by using production engines as the basis for MotoGP racers.

This, in fact, is how racing began.