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Counter-order! In a recent interview with Speedweek, Carlos Ezpeleta refuted what his powerful father, Carmelo, said regarding the number of teams accepted in the MotoGP World Championship.
As you may recall, after Suzuki's withdrawal, Dorna's boss had stated that he would only give the Japanese brand's spot to one manufacturer, therefore, stopping the arrival of teams from the Moto2 or Moto3 eager to develop in category.
Good or bad, it was a choice dictated by common sense, even if a limiting one for highly professional teams such as, for example, the Leopard team in the Moto3 or the Marc VDS team in the Moto2.
But it seems like Carlos has other intentions and doesn't want to increase the number of teams in the field. As a consequence, if BMW were to decide to enter - as is long wished by Don Carmelo - it would necessarily have to buy/lease an existing team.
This is certainly nothing new, given that Aprilia did the same with the Gresini team previously.
Aprilia, Honda, Yamaha, and KTM each currently have a satellite team: Trackhouse, LCR, Pramac, and Tech 3 respectively, while Ducati has its satellite team of choice in VR46 but also an existing agreement with the Gresini team.
The result is that BMW will have to shop around, with Nadia Padovani's team as its main target. Even so, however, the situation would be in a state of imbalance, since BMW would have only one team...and that's why Ezpeleta wanted to keep the former Suzuki spot in his hands. Of course, a future with six brands still involve 24 starters.
In this sense we don't fully understand Carlos Ezpeleta's words.
"We agree that the vision of the MotoGP will continue to be eleven teams and twenty-two riders. Experience - even after Suzuki's withdrawal - has shown us that the conditions are the best. The fact is that we already have a huge treasure in our structure that we haven't yet fully exploited. The twenty-two active riders today all represent twenty-two incredibly good stories. We're seeing incredible action in forty-four races, and I think we're already facing a huge challenge to narrate these stories in the best way possible. With twenty-four players, that task would be even greater."
Hmm, it may be ... but it seems like a specious statement to us. While it's true that, for BMW (assuming it decides to enter ...), constructing from scratch or renting a team wouldn't make a big difference. It's undeniable that, after any eventual entry, the participation would be unbalanced.
What Carlos Ezpeleta says: "Ultimately, we're interested in the quality of the eleven teams. Whether this is provided by five or six manufacturers is another matter. But it's no secret that our current priority is five constructors. This doesn' mean that we want to prevent a sixth constructor from entering, but it does mean that another constructor should work with one of the eleven teams. Eleven teams, twenty-two riders. That's it."
Yes, that's it, as long as one of the manufacturers present is happy to have only two bikes on the track, but Ducati's experience has taught us how important it is to have more data available for development. Unless, of course, the Ezpeletas think that one of the current manufacturers wants to get out of the picture sooner than we expected.
