MotoGP set to ban private testing again

Before the start of the 2012 season the GP Commission decided to change the testing rules (which were initially put into place as a cost saving measure) – in regards to private testing and that it was “agreed that with effect from 2012 private testing of MotoGP class machines may be carried out by any rider, subject to a limit on the total number of tyres being supplied by the official MotoGP tyre supplier,” which many believed was to give Valentino Rossi and Ducati a helping hand in trying to find a way out of their numerous issues, however the GP Commission is now planning to ban private testing again, for the 2014 season.

According to British website MCN.
com the Commission will be meeting in Qatar to discuss the new proposal and confirm that will only three official tests in 2014.
Apparently the proposal of banning private testing again came around following Repsol Honda’s private test at the Austin circuit earlier this month, that saw only the partecipation of Yamaha and LCR Honda, only after IRTA proposed that Honda open the test to the rest of the field.

The rest of the teams decided they couldn’t afford the expensive jaunt to the other side of the world just to get an advantage on a new circuit, hence the new proposal, or as Ducati’s Paolo Ciabatti put it, to “keep costs under control and keep an equal situation among the teams” since “the current rules don’t meet that target.

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