Ezpeleta holds Motegi press conference on MotoGP/WSBK announcement

Ahead of the riders’ press conference kicking off the Japanese GP weekend at Motegi, Dorna Sports CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta also held a conference to explain the recent announcement of the World Superbike Championship coming under the Dorna umbrella. He said: “Since the acquisition from Bridgepoint that the Infront Sports and Media, we have been having several meetings with Infront Motorsports to try to adequate the technical rules of both championships. This was the main aim of Bridgepoint, trying to thinks the two championships together, can have a lot of benefits running together, and also many synergies.

“We had several meetings during last year, first in Madrid then in Rome, then in Paris and finally in Donington trying to accommodate first of all the rules. And this has been impossible. And finally the decision of Bridgepoint has been to maintain two championships, two separate championships as two separate companies, but both under the umbrella of Dorna Sports.

“For 2013 the regulations (WSBK) will be the ones that have been approved between the FIM and Infront Motorsports. For 2014 we will obviously work together with the manufacturers and the different bodies involved to change the regulations. We think that a championship derived from production bikes that is using 39 engines during one season, and in the opposite in MotoGP you are using six – to be honest it’s not very correct, and we need to set up both championships with their own spirit. One is from bikes derived from production bikes, and another is for prototypes. This is something we will do with the FIM first, and then with the manufactures, who are involved in both championships.”

Source: motogp.com / Dorna