The single tyre rule for 2009 has reignited the debate over what the MotoGP World Championship should stand for.
The move from 500cc two-strokes to 990cc four-strokes in 2002 saw the MotoGP championship increasingly branded as a 'prototype' class, the two-wheeled equivalent of
Formula One and a place where the fastest, most exotic, motorcycles are raced by the best riders in the world.
That is how '
MotoGP' would introduce itself to a stranger at a party (or a potential sponsor) and also how MotoGP sought to distance itself from the visibly similar World Superbike Championship - a distinction that is yet to penetrate into most mainstream minds. To the general public, the main difference between MotoGP and World Superbike is simply the riders.
The end of open tyre competition in MotoGP removes a further element of MotoGP's prototype philosophy - but does it really matter?
After all, every motorcycle on the MotoGP grid has been powered by a four-cylinder engine since the start of 2007. Not much radical experimentation there then, especially since WSBK features both twin and four cylinder machines, but no-one really complained.
Even MotoGP's perceived role as a proving ground for cutting-edge technology, essential to improve future road bikes, has come to little.
Ducati produced a limited edition road replica of its Desmosedici, but
BMW, Aprilia and KTM have all decided that MotoGP experience was unnecessary for the creation of their new high-performance road bikes - which they will refine and promote by racing in World Superbike (Superstock in KTM's case) instead.
If a new high performance motorcycle can be built by a major manufacturer without any MotoGP input, it is hard to see how road tyre development will grind to a halt now that open competition has been extinguished. Anyway, when was the last time a road rider popped out to buy a qualifying tyre?
