Yamaha boss supports calendar cut

Yamaha’s senior MotoGP boss Masao Furusawa believes an effective way to slash costs in MotoGP would be to significantly reduce the world championship calendar.

The MotoGP world championship currently runs over an 18-round format, though that could fall to 17 in 2009 with the future of the new Balatonring circuit in Hungary still shrouded in mystery.

Furusawa though believes cutting the calendar by at least three races would help teams and manufacturers save money.

Furusawa told MCN: “When I joined MotoGP the number of races was sixteen. For me sixteen is enough and hopefully we can have less than sixteen. Fourteen or fifteen is good for me.”

Reducing the number of races in MotoGP is not necessarily a cost-saving measure though.

Circuit promoter’s pay as much as £4m for the rights to host races, and much of that money is filtered back to the teams. By cutting races, it would effectively have a big impact on Dorna’s revenues, and as a result less money would be handed down to the teams.

MotoGP has embarked on a huge cost-cutting exercise to counter the global economic crisis, and measures agreed for 2009 include the banning of Friday morning practice, and engines must last for two races from the Brno GP onwards.