Until very recently Ezpeleta dismissed this kind of talk, calling those who wanted traction control limited or banned “purists.” But now a series of lackluster races, Rossi’s comments, and some blistering attacks in the European press have caused the Dorna CEO to revise his positions.
In a recent interview in Germany he told the Spanish sports daily El As, “Of course I see that the problem exists. I am not an idiot, but the problem is how to take a step backwards. You can't propose to Ducati that they give up their advantage.” He went of to say, “I would impose a generic ECU (“centralita única” in Spanish) if I could.”
But the truth is that the power to make and to change technical regulations now rests not with Dorna and the FIM, but with the MSMA (the manufacturers), and Dorna, the commercial rights holders, can only reason and implore.
It is a mistake to believe then, that Dorna controls the technical regulations. “I could propose the change with tires, a commercial matter, but not with technical regulations,” he said.
Nicky Hayden, a rider with AMA Grand National dirt track experience, is almost a throwback nowadays. The Kentuckian ex-world champion knows that he would be much more effective in the series if the electronics were either stripped of their traction control capacities or
dumbed down to the extent that traction control was minimal.
“Everything I learned as a kid growing up was about throttle control and how to get drive out of a sliding bike, but the electronics has changed all that. Sure, I’d like it to change,” he said in Germany where his factory Honda gave trouble for the third consecutive race, this time a combination of the team mounting the wrong tire and an electronics glitch. “I like a good battle on the track, but with these bikes that just doesn’t seem to happen much no more.”
Kenny Roberts, whose team is absent from the GP premier class grid in 2008 for the first time since 1986, gave his opinion at the World Superbike round at Miller Motorsports Park earlier this summer: “The championship has got to get rid of traction control, get the tire situation under control. A single tire rule -- that is the only way to get the costs down and to get some excitement back in the racing. But Carmelo hasn’t got that kind of power. I like a lot of what Dorna has done. They have built this championship up, but the mistake that Dorna and the FIM made was to give the rule-making power to the factories. Bernie (Ecclestone) always said that you never, never want the factories making the rules because they will run up the costs and ruin the racing because they don’t know anything about the business of motorsports.”
