MotoGP director of technology, Corrado Cecchinelli, has revealed that four privateer 'Claiming Rule Teams' will take up the offer of using the new Magneti Marelli control ECU system in 2013.
Cecchinelli told
La Gazzetta dello Sport that those teams will be: "Ioda, Avintia, Forward Racing and Paul Bird [the new PBM bike, for Micheal Laverty]."
That would mean that the CRTs choosing to stick with their own electronics for a final year will be Aspar (ART), Cardion AB (ART) and Gresini (FTR-Honda) - plus the PBM-run full ART bike for Yonny Hernandez.
Cecchinelli claimed that the ECU, which is to become compulsory from 2014 - with the notable concession that official manufacturer entries will continue to use their own software - costs 50-100,000 Euros and is "already better than what Ducati and Yamaha have."
Ducati and Yamaha both already work with Magneti Marelli for their bespoke
MotoGP electronics, while Honda produces its electronics in-house.
As a 'penalty' for being allowed to develop their own software, inside the control ECU hardware, the manufacturer machines - factory or satellite - will face a four-litre fuel penalty relative to the CRTs (or whatever the privateer bikes will be called) in 2014.