Rossi slams “elitist” GP

Added on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor | No Comments

World Champion Valentino Rossi has called on MotoGP organisers and manufacturers to end the “elitist” nature of the championship or risk a massive cut in rider numbers, claiming that the dominance of factory teams is squeezing out privateer interest.

Speaking after a difficult off-season for MotoGP following the withdrawal of Kawasaki, Rossi believes that the strength of the factory-backed teams, including his own Yamaha team, is making it impossible for privateer teams to compete.

Ten riders will take to the grid on satellite bikes next season, with Honda having the strongest privateer presence with four bikes in addition to its two factory efforts, Ducati have three, Yamaha two and Kawasaki one entry following the recent deal to rescue the Kawasaki team.

But despite this, no privateer entry has managed to win a Grand Prix since Toni Elias won the 2006 Portuguese GP for Gresini and Rossi believes that the gap is only getting bigger after the move to 800cc.

“Our bikes are so sophisticated that only a few manufacturers can do them,” the reigning champion told Motosprint. “So the riders are few as well, and there are no privateers anymore.

“Until 2006 a privateer like (Marco) Melandri could fight for the title, but since 2007, with the 800cc bikes, the gap between works teams and privateers has become huge. MotoGP has become too elitist and that’s not good.”

He urged the manufacturers to make more ex-works bikes available to other teams.

“Why do my bikes get crushed under the presser at the end of the year, instead of being sold to a privateer team that would then be able to field two more riders?” said Rossi.

“We’ve reached such a high level that Yamaha doesn’t want others to see how it makes its bikes, so it would rather crush them. But this way it’s difficult to get a nice grid, which in my opinion should have at least 24 riders.”

The Italian wants the problem to be addressed as part of the sport’s radical cost-cutting plan for 2010.

“We must spend less, and make the bikes go slower,” Rossi said.

“The situation with the economy is very ugly, the bikes aren’t being sold anymore, and we can’t pretend nothing is happening.”

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