Here's a translation. Bear with me. I'm still convalescing and allowed limited time at my pc!!
MotoGP Grands Prix from now on will be run over just two days: Saturday and Sunday. The bikes will no longer be on track on Fridays, a day which will be dedicated to the usual press conference, and probably also to the public, who will have access to the paddock to view the bikes and meet the riders.
This, obviously, is the most drastic option because discussions are still open and there is the possibility that in the end only the morning session will be done away with. In any case next week will see the usual "Spring Reunion" taking place in Geneva and it will be up to the FIM to ratify the proposal.
The idea of eliminating the first day of practice in order to compress the racing weekend into two days in truth had already emerged during the meetings held in Bologna between Ezpeleta and representatives from the satellite teams: in Bologna however the Dorna boss spoke of it with an eye to implementing it in 2010. In Sepang however, at the meeting held on the 4th of February, the Houses presented a common front in asking Dorna to elimiate Friday practice already as of this year.
Eliminating Fridays, which would enable teams to save on the costs of one day (but one should ask: how much will this influence the total budget?) will result in a total review of the program. The idea at this point would be to have all 3 practice sessions concentrated into Saturday. Two sessions of free practice of 45 minutes each, followed by a qualifying session, also 45 minutes long. With regards to the 125 and 250, they would have one turn of free practice on Saturday mornings and a qualifying session in the afternoon (at this point with the starting grid being established through a fastest lap and no longer according to the combined times of Fridays and Saturdays).
In addition to Saturday's practice sessions, there is some thought being given to slightly lengthen the duration of the Sunday morning warm-up, rather than shorten it as had originally been thought: in this way offering a compromise to whoever has complained about the dangers of hurried practice just before the race.
There are rumours from Spain that Dorna is already in the process of preparing a press release to be sent out over the next few days, to inform all the teams and crews about this 'revolution'. Yes because a revolution this would be, especially from a logistics point of view: hospitality trailers and motorhomes will be able to reach the circuit a day later, therefore wednesdays and thursdays respectively.
Apart from the logistics, however, the major changes will regard television: Dorna in fact has contracts in place with television stations which deal with a 3-day event. It is obvious that once Friday practice is removed the contract amounts will need adjusting downwards, with a resulting loss of several millions of Euro in tv rights for the organisers. Over and above, the 'overcrowding' of Saturday practice sessions will result in times being shifted accordingly.
MotoGP therefore continues following in the footsteps of Superbike: After the introduction of a single tyre, now there is also talk of opening the paddock to the public (something that SBK has always done). At this point the paddock division between Motogp and the other classes seems destined to disappear. This was a measure newly introduced last year which had caused division between teams.
