THE formation of the Claiming Rule Team or the new acronym CRT that has been banded around MotoGP since the announcement of the 2012 rules has been explained by the series' Director of Technology, Corrado Cecchinelli.
For the 2012 season the MotoGP bikes will see an engine capacity increase of 1,000cc, the basis for the new CRT status will allow for any machine entered that is not a member of the MSMA body - this is formed of the manufacturers Yamaha, Honda, Ducati and Suzuki.
Commenting on the inclusion of the Claiming Rule Teams, Cecchinelli said: "I think it will add to the competition in the sense that we will hopefully have more bikes on the grid. I don’t think any CRT team (which basically means the present privateer teams), will lose any chance or potential compared to what there is now."
To help build upon the dwindling grid size that has hit the championship since the dawn of the 800cc era, the ruling behind the CRT status will hold certain advantages over the existing factory and satellite teams.
The current teams are regulated with an engine limit of six per rider, this will remain next year with the CRTs allowed an allocation of 12 engines for each rider. In addition fuel capacity will be increased for the CRTs to 24 litres from the current 21. Cecchinelli continued: "These are big aids, and they will allow the independent teams to race with much lower budgets."
When the new team concept was initially announced it was expected that the idea behind the claiming rule was to allow other CRTs to claim another team's engine at a fixed price with an aim to keep the development costs down. However, this is reverted giving some analytical power to the manufacturers giving them the opportunity to claim a CRT engine.
Under this governance Claiming Rule Teams may lose up to four engines - with each manufacturer only able to claim an engine once and the claimed engine will not count towards the CRTs limit. Costs for claiming an engine including the transmission will be set at 20,000 euros and 15,000 euros for just the engine.
The FIM have also revised the testing restrictions after the MSMA put forward a proposal, a result of Ducati dancing around the current regulations with Rossi and Hayden sampling the Desmosedici GP12. Contracted riders will now be eligible to test for a total of eight days during the 2011 season.
After Ducati made a very public outing of the 1,000cc Desmosedici with their riders circulating the Jerez circuit Honda have reportedly been lapping Suzuka, with Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa expected to test in the upcoming months. Yamaha will hand over their 2012 entry to Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies at the open test following the Mugello race.
The new 2012 rules for the 1,000cc engine capacity are showing some promise for next year with 16 new teams applying for application for the updated MotoGP class.
