100% agree too. Anyone who follows Alex Briggs on twitter will probably have seen him answer a question on bike development. His answer was basically that the bike is now designed for the tyres first and foremost. Everything else is compromised for the sake of the tyre. Everyone said last year that suzuki had a good product but they struggled to get heat in the tyre and so had no grip for 2/3 of the circuits. They don't need a single tyre rule just some restrictions on allocation. No flying in specials the night before a race. Any make on any bike but maybe 5 compounds and your stuck with those. Then at least if Bridgestones don't suit your bike/rider you have an option rather than having to radicaly re develop your bike (at huge cost) in an attempt to make it work ? How does that reduce budgets or make it a level playing field. The Motogp grid as a whole is probably divided between the top and bottom than it has ever been (even without CRT). There are 3 or 4 guys gonna win every race there are no suprises. Who will win the next Moto2 or Moto3 race ? You couldn't say with confidence because 10 guys have a shot every round. Moto2 is the highlight of the whole day now, proper racing no whinging because someone touched your fairing or stepped into "your space"
Now this is worth a read, I never really thought about the implications of Rossi going to a satellite team other than him taking up a rookie spot which I never agreed with but considering the below (borrowed from motomatters) I agree with it even less. I reckon Rossi's got to set his own team up personally Quote: The satellite teams might welcome the money Rossi would bring, but they would not welcome the disruption: putting together a strong satellite effort such as Gresini, Tech 3 or LCR takes many years, carefully assembling the best (and most affordable) technicians when they become available. As a satellite team, signing Rossi would mean firing most of the staff that you have spent all those years putting together, to make way for Rossi's hand-picked and trusted staff, only to have them all leave after 1 or 2 years. A satellite team could be gutted of talent by Rossi, a rather ironic state of affairs. As for the factory rides, Honda has pretty well excluded a return for the Italian, HRC boss Shuhei Nakamoto telling GPOne.com that it was time for Rossi to prove that it really was all about the rider and not the machine. Yamaha seems marginally more open to a Rossi return, though even there the likelihood is very close to zero. There is still one camp inside Yamaha that would like to see the Italian come back to Yamaha, but their numbers are diminishing. The decision by Yamaha management to back Jorge Lorenzo as the future for the factory has paid off, despite losing the championship to Casey Stoner last year. The factories - both Yamaha and Honda - believe that their ambitions for the MotoGP championship can only be realized if they have either of Casey Stoner or Jorge Lorenzo on their bikes. While there are very few paddock insiders who doubt that Rossi could win races on either a Yamaha or Honda, there are even fewer who believe he could challenge Lorenzo or Stoner for the title.
