Yamaha boss fears more engine expense

Yamaha’s MotoGP boss Masao Furusawa fears the drive to extend engine life will only force factories to spend more money in the short term.

Extending engine life is seen as one of the most crucial new rules for MotoGP, with big cost savings to be made from making engines run at least twice as long as they currently do.

From the Czech Republic GP in Brno in August, the likes of Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi will only be allowed to use five engines in the last eight races under 2009 cost-cutting measures.

And from the 2010 campaign onwards, it is widely expected that engines will have to last for at least three races, yet now a team changes a motor at every Grand Prix.

Furusawa though believes the new engine rules will force factories to invest more money to re-design the engines, though he said the switch would ultimately lead to big savings.

“We will have to re-design the engines. The current engines have some limited durability. If we decide to use one engine for two or three races, with the current engine you can’t do that.

“We can set some rpm limit but that’s not necessarily going to extend the life of the engine. To redesign the motor would mean bigger costs, but after finishing the new engine design then we can cut the cost.

“In order to develop the new engines we would need more money, so which is cheaper?” said Furusawa.