MotoGP grid

What's going on with MotoGP? There are only 10 teams/18 riders signed
up to race this year. 15 years ago there were 30+ riders starting each
race including a few wildcards. Has it become too elite? too expensive
to enter?

Nev..
'07 XB12X

 

Pure conjecture (I have no facts) but it would seem to be too
expensive - Kenny Roberts' team couldn't seem to get enough dollars to
front this year, and Aprilia pulled out citing costs.

Has there been a change in prize money ?

JL

 

its been heading that way for a few years... its quite sad and
pathetic really.

But then, most countries had their own 500cc championships in those
days, so locals would get a run in on those bikes....

 

Pretty much. Although, the grids have been this small plenty often in
the past. in 1989, 1990 and 1991, there were plenty of races when 13
to 15 riders would be all that would line up for a 500 race. What's
more, though, from what I remember of 500GP racing in the early to
mid-90's (and I hereby put the stopwatch on Clembo to correct me),
when 30-rider grids were the norm, most of what would happen is that
the lights would go green, the bikes would wail off, and ten laps
later, the leaders would start lapping the ring-ins, the wildcards and
those on outgunned bikes. Eg. looking at the results for the 1993
Australian GP, of the 34 starters, 11 crashed out and the leaders
lapped everyone up to and including the eleventh-place finisher.

MotoGP is definitely a lot more elite than 500GP used to be.
Admittedly, it's the cost of raising a competitive ride doing it, but,
currently, it's a matter of "If you're going to get lapped, don't
bother turning up."

I can see the point of that, especially since there are such knife-
fights taking place at the pointy end of the field as we've been
seeing for the past three or four seasons (since Gibernau showed that
Rossi can be beaten in a straight fight)

 

Nev.. wrote...

Maybe a bit of both.

But then does it really matter? Most people who see MotoGP do so via
television broadcasts. The only time that we get to see the whole field is
when they walk up and down the grid pre-race and at the start. The rest of
the coverage is the front two to four bikes. The rest of the field gets a
guernsey when someone has a prang.

 

. The rest of the coverage is the front two to four bikes. The rest of the field gets a guernsey when someone has a prang.

Which is fuqing annoying

 

You've got to be there.

Theo
Do you really want the TV coverage to give the last bike equal time?

 

Theo Bekkers wrote...

That would be noice, but unlike you I'm not rich enough to flitter across
the world watching the racing.

PI has to do for me...

No. Never said that. Just that it seems that the coverage never really
goes back further than maybe the top 5. The bottom order of the field
seems to get coverage only when someone crashes. Or if the producer
happens to spot some dicing further back that the cameras may fluke it to
catch..

 

As it does for me.

That's the way the world works. Even in Rally Cars, where no two cars are
ever together. You get to see the front-runners.

Theo