Fiat Yamaha Team's Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo (Photo: Yamaha Racing)

Dorna will be patient with the MSMA while all this gets worked out because, unlike World Superbike, MotoGP is a prototype championship and cannot exist, at least for the present, without factory prototypes. The original proposal from Dorna was to eliminate as of 2012 the 800s, but now the MSMA wants the 800cc bikes to continue along with two types of 1000cc bikes not for a transitional period, but instead for another five years.

In fact Dorna would be glad to let the MSMA make all the rules if the organization would commit to stocking the grid with 20-22 bikes for a five-year period. That, however, is something that the MSMA cannot do.

In the past Ducati was the rogue (or at least non-Japanese) member of the MSMA. When the MSMA was pushing for the change from 990cc to 800cc, the organization was initially split with all four Japanese brands in favor and Ducati, the lone European factory, opposed. Now, with Kawasaki no longer taking part in decision-making, there are only four active players and for the first time the MSMA is truly divided with Yamaha and Honda pushing for a continuation of the 800cc bikes and Suzuki and Ducati said to be backing a move to 1000cc.

The postponement of the Japanese Grand Prix due to volcanic ash over Europe means that the Grand Prix Commission will have a bit longer, at least until the Spanish Grand Prix (April 30-May 2), to mull all this over.

The worry that the MSMA seems to have is that non-MSMA members like Aprilia (a former member) and BMW could supply full-factory engines to 'independent' teams and the Aprilia RSV4 and BMW S1000RR engines, allowed an extra three liters of fuel and twelve fresh engines instead of six, would produce more power than the factory 800cc and 1000cc engines -- and, if the electronics were state-of-the-art, these 'Claiming Rule Teams' could win.

There was a time when a careful look at the technical regulations revealed what the MSMA wanted. It seemed to the Flammini brothers in 2003 that the MSMA wanted to slow down the Superbike class by fitting restrictor plates but without really limiting development. And, like Dorna, the World Superbike promoters would have accepted that rules package (intended for 2004) if the MSMA factories had committed to fill the grids.