Preziosi believes there are better ways to cut costs

Ducati MotoGP boss Filippo Preziosi has come out against plans for a control ECU and a engine limit of 16,000rpm in an effort to reduce costs in the premier class, saying that manufacturers will quickly lose interest if they cannot use racing to improve the breed.

But Preziosi, who is responsible for the Demsosedici, added that he lives in the real world and is very well aware of the current financial climate, saying Ducati is open to discuss ways of reducing the amount of money spent going racing every other weekend but a rev limit and spec-ECU is not the way to do it.

"As an engineer, I completely disagree with that, I would like to have freedom to do everything, without any limit, neither displacement or anything else. But like a human being, I am living in a world that is in trouble, and I think that Mr Ezpeleta has a big responsibility to keep this championship at the best level possible, and to make that championship sustainable for the future," said Preziosi, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

"No one here knows what will happen is six months. This championship is related to Italy and Spain a lot, all the world will be affected by the recession, so I think it is a good idea to start to discuss about what we can do to reduce the costs. We are completely open on that.

"On the other side, the championship has to remain in which you can make new things and you build up knowledge in your company, otherwise we are not interested in staying, because it is like in two-stroke era, without electronics, without any developments of the engine, the interest from the companies was a lot less. So I think this is a difficult problem to solve, trying to save the workers that are working here, and reducing the costs, and on the other hand, keeping MotoGP as the highest level of knowledge and a laboratory for the know-how.

"We are open to every solution. We are not saying, 'no, because I don't like it'. A 16,000rpm limit for me is really stupid, because you don't reduce the power of the Honda bike, that maybe will be the most powerful, and also you don't close the gap between the CRT and the factories. If you want to do something like that, you have to do 14K rpm, because you have to put the standard engine.

"If you really want to cut the cost, at 16K rpm, you will push CRT to work a lot on the engine, and that will increase the costs and reduce the mileage, and that will increase the costs twice, because you have less mileage and a more expensive engine. If you want really to cut the costs, you have to put the revs so low, that the engine that was designed to run at that level or just a little bit less could be a very cheap engine for a long mileage.

"The problem is to understand if you are interested in competing in a championship in which the rev limit is so low that a standard production engine is good for racing. What is the interest of the company? So we are open, but we have to discuss...

"A standard ECU means that MotoGP is not interesting any more to the company for developing strategies that you can use for production. The good point is that you can keep that ECU with the same software for years, and you will for sure save money. So it depends even from the other modifications of the rules. So I think we have to do a good cocktail of the rules, and not speak just about every single ingredient in the cocktail."