Buy a MotoGP bike for under £1m in 2014

Details of the alternative options to running a CRT machine in MotoGP are starting to emerge, with Honda committed to selling five of its production RC213V bikes and Yamaha agreeing to an engine supply deal for four bikes in 2014.

Honda will sell five of the production RC213V machines at a maximum cost of 1m Euros (£835,000) per rider, while Dorna boss Carmelo Ezpeleta confirmed he was close to agreeing a deal with Yamaha to supply YZR-M1 1000cc engines for up to four riders at a maximum cost of 800,000 Euros per entry (£667,000) for one season.

Ezpeleta also confirmed during an appearance at Ducati’s 2013 team launch in Italy that any team buying a production Honda for 2014 would have an option to upgrade to an improved spec motor for 2015 at an additional cost of 500,000 Euros (£417,000).

The options being made available by Honda and Yamaha are likely to see a significant reduction in the number of CRT bikes on the grid in 2014.

This season’s grid will feature 12 CRT bikes, which use a tuned production-based engine like a Kawasaki ZX-10R or Honda CBR1000RR, housed in a prototype chassis. That’s 50% of the entire field but Dorna boss Carmelo Ezpeleta told MCN that a current CRT team like the Forward Racing outfit that will run Colin Edwards and Claudio Corti will have a number of possibilities in 2014.

He said: “They can continue using CRT because they may think the balance between cost and performance is better for them. It depends if you think the quality that the Honda can give to you for one million Euros is the same as the Aprilia ART or another CRT bike. They can buy a Honda or lease a Yamaha engine. This is up to them to decide. Whoever is using the production Honda next year though must be in the championship right now. So if a team wants to stay with CRT they can continue.”

Ezpeleta estimates the cost for an independent supplier to build a chassis package for the Yamaha engine to be around 200,000 Euros (£167,000) meaning the cost of both the Honda and Yamaha option will be roughly the same. The Yamaha engine supply deal is to be run over an initial three-year period between 2014 and 2016.

Any team that does use the production Honda and Yamaha engine package will be able to run 24 litres, while the existing 12 prototype factory bikes will run 21 litres, Ezpeleta said.

The privateer bikes will also have to use the spec electronics hardware and software that will be supplied by Magneti Marelli.

The factory prototypes will be permitted to continue running their own software but using the standard hardware.