MotoGP: Back to 1000cc in 2012

FIM President Vito Ippolito and Dorna Sports CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta finally confirmed after several months of speculation and discussions that MotoGP will run a 1000cc engine capacity from 2012.
MotoGP will go back to 1,000cc four-stroke engines, but with a maximum of four cylinders and a maximum cylinder bore measurement of 81 mm.

“At the beginning of next year we will produce the new rules in a more complete format but that is the basis; 2012 will be the year of a new era of MotoGP.

” said FIM president Vito Ippolito.
“It was a very important meeting to decide the future of the MotoGP class.
From 2012 the bikes will have an engine capacity of up to 1000cc, have up to four cylinders and the maximum bore will be 81mm.
It’s a very important measurement because with this we can have all the characteristics of the engine.
This has been approved and between now and the start of the 2010 season we will have another two meetings to define the rest of the specifications for this new class.

” stated Carmelo Ezpeleta.
You can read the official document here and you can see that most of the rules regard Moto2, but the current MotoGP class has had some rules tweaked, including a weight increase for the bikes from 148kg to 150kg, and tires for the entire weekend will be reduced from 20 to 18.

After complaints by the manufacturers regarding the 10 point penalty on the constructors standings for infringing the engine durability rule (in 2010, 6 engines for 18 races) has been changed again with the brunt falling on the riders, who instead of starting at the back of the grid will now have to start from the pitlane 20 seconds after the start of the race or if an extra engine is used during the race the riders will get a ride through penalty.