Why manufacturers must bury self-interest for the sake of survival

The coronavirus pandemic is forcing the world of sport to adapt to ensure its survival through various structural and financial rethinks to mitigate the financial disaster COVID-19 has wrought across the globe.

In recent weeks, Formula 1 has elected to get radical with its thinking to keep costs as low as possible. This manifested itself in such ideas as delaying its 2021 rules overhaul by a year and freezing current chassis for a two-season cycle. Reducing the impending cost cap has also been agreed in principal - though by how much remains a sticking point between teams.

MotoGP has been no different. The manufacturers' association has held talks to propose cost-saving measures to take to the Grand Prix Commission for review and approval.

On Thursday, the GPC - consisting of representatives from Dorna Sports, the international race teams association (IRTA), the FIM and the MSMA - revealed the first steps it would be taking to bring MotoGP's costs under control during the current crisis.

A unanimously agreed-upon idea by the MSMA to use the current bikes next year, following in F1's footsteps, was made official by the GPC.

No development will be allowed this year should racing get underway, while normal development rules will apply following the opening race of the 2021 season for the concession (Aprilia, KTM) and non-concession factories (Honda, Yamaha, Ducati, Suzuki).

That means, save for KTM and Aprilia - should they be able to afford to - engines will be frozen for two years, and only one piece of aero development will have taken place by the end of next year.

Given a factory MotoGP engine costs - and this is a conservative estimation, based on the ultra-cageyness of works MotoGP teams on how much they actually spend on development - somewhere around €300,000, spread out over the 14 a works outfit needs for each of its riders and the cost to satellite teams to buy them, a freeze on development should reduce this fairly eye-watering sum significantly.

Satellite teams are given €2 million per rider from Dorna under the current independent teams agreement as contribution towards leasing bikes. Year-old motorcycles are capped at €2.2m, but a full works bike will cost a team somewhere in the region of €4m - though that includes updates and technical staff. Spare parts are not included. A top satellite effort can expect to pay somewhere in the region of €15m to run its outfit for a season.

The top factory budgets easily quadruple that, and more than likely far exceed it - especially if rumours on the figures in some riders' contracts are to be believed; Marc Marquez's four-year Honda renewal is thought to top €100m. Certainly, in the aftermath of the current crisis, the days of decadent contracts like that one will be over.

With four bikes per team - and parts needed for works-supported satellite teams on top of that - the development and spare parts costs will still be high. Most teams will spend at least €5m and probably more on spares each season

Given the cost of building, running and repairing a MotoGP bike, it is peculiar that amid the current climate each team still has two bikes per rider.

Ducati, which is currently being knocked left and right by the loss of income from racing and from road bike sales (the Italian marque - essentially a luxury brand - reportedly sold 53,183 bikes last year), proposed the idea of scaling back to one bike per rider, moving in line with pretty much every bike racing series around.

"Motorcycling in general will suffer a lot from this crisis," general manager Gigi Dall'Igna told Italian press recently. "All the ideas that allow us to reduce costs must be put into practice. I think one of those measures may be having only one bike per rider in MotoGP."

This idea was shot down by the rest of the MSMA in a teleconference last week. This seems like an own-goal from MotoGP.

The one-bike rule has been a staple of Moto2 and Moto3 for the last decade. This also came into effect in the World Superbike Championship in 2012, with it thought this brought about a saving of €300,000 for every team. Admittedly, that's not a huge amount of money in the grand scheme of things, but WSBK costs a lot less and generates less income than MotoGP.

In an interview with Autosport, Yamaha team manager Massimo Meregalli argued against Ducati's proposal, stating: "Personally, I am against it, because the bikes are already ready.

"It's true that you can save money with spare parts but, as far as the investment is concerned, I see it more as a problem than a benefit."

It's true that the investment for this year has already been made so, not unreasonably, some factories would worry that scrapping half of that would be a waste. But, though there will be a saving on engine and aero development in 2021, the latest GPC ruling hasn't explicitly outlawed the evolution of things such as chassis and suspension components, as well as holeshot devices.

Therefore, with four bikes per team - then add on top of that parts needed for works-supported satellite teams - the development and spare parts costs will still be high. Most teams will spend at least €5m and probably more on spares each season.

And it's worth bearing in mind that Ducati is represented by three teams - which equates to 12 bikes in total, with parts needed to be available for both its GP20 and GP19s, on top of full support for four riders.

Scaling back to one bike per rider also theoretically means the number of personnel required for each team is less - a crucial thing considering MotoGP will want to massively reduce the some 2000-strong circus which typically fills a paddock if racing can get underway later this year. Travel costs for each team per year easily exceed €1m.

Autosport reached out to Ducati to provide estimates on how much money would be saved by going to a one-bike rule, though it declined to comment at this time.

Naturally, there would be some opposition to this. Should a rider wreck a bike, instead of jumping straight onto their second one, they'd likely lose a session while the team builds up the spare bike. One less bike means back-to-back comparisons of new items wouldn't be possible without utilising both riders, but that still means you'd lose a practice session's worth of race and qualifying preparation to development work.

The flag-to-flag rule would also need to be tweaked to compensate for the fact that a proper pitstop would have to take place instead of a bike swap - and also likely lead to set-up compromises pre-race based on what the weather is likely to do.

Ultimately, though, these are minor things which aren't worth five of the six manufacturers cutting their noses off to spite their face over.

Marc Marquez's four-year Honda renewal is thought to top €100m. Certainly, in the aftermath of the current crisis, the days of decadent contracts like that one will be over

To the MSMA's immense credit, over the last decade it has been receptive to change for the greater good. When Dorna and the FIM came to the conclusion that a spec electronics package was what MotoGP needed to ensure a competitive championship and a healthy one, the key manufacturers with most to lose - Yamaha and Honda - were willing to play ball.

Since that rule change came into force in 2016, MotoGP has easily transcended the motorsport echelons to position itself as arguably the pinnacle of racing and - along with Formula E - become the example for other series to follow.

MotoGP's latest cost-saving measures are a welcome step in the right direction in uncertain times. But - as Ducati's Dall'Igna rightly points out - it needs to get radical to ensure its continued existence.

Self-interest and ego from manufacturers now will only result in collapse. And what a waste that would be.