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The problems with MotoGP's engine limits

This season each MotoGP rider has to make six engines last all year. Toby Moody explains why that rule could be harming the spectacle rather than achieving its cost-cutting aim

Kevin Schwantz was in the commentary box on Saturday afternoon for 10 minutes that turned into 40 because Jorge Lorenzo's four-cylinder Yamaha engine decided to explode into a million pieces halfway through qualifying. Red-lining it in each gear means that MotoGP engines are doing 300 revs a second. The thing had no chance.

The 1993 world champion leaned over to the right of the box, craning his neck towards the first corner where there was a load of very white smoke. We soon knew where it was coming from and what it had then caused as Ben Spies and the helpless Randy de Puniet hit the oil at unabated speed. De Puniet careered into the gravel and clipped the front off Spies' Yamaha with his legs in the process.

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