The minimum age limit for the Moto3 class is to be dropped for the winner of the Spanish CEV Moto3 championship. In a meeting at Brno, the Grand Prix Commission approved a proposal for the winner of the CEV Moto3 to be allowed to compete in the Moto3 world championship the season after winning the CEV.
The rule change will mean that Fabio Quartararo, the young Frenchman currently leading the CEV Moto3, will be allowed to start in Moto3 in 2015. The Frenchman is currently 15, and does not turn 16 until 20th April. If this rule had not been changed, then Quartararo would have been forced to miss the first two races of the 2015 season.
The official justification for the rule change is that the CEV is now a championship run under the auspices of the FIM, and therefore has a higher status than a normal national championship.
The level in that championship is clearly high, as demonstrated by the results of Jorge Navarro in Moto3, drafted in to replace Livio Loi.
The suspicion remains in the paddock that this was a rule change made at the behest of certain Spanish teams. Quartararo currently rides for Emilio Alzamora’s Estrella Galicia Junior team alongside Maria Herrera.
It is believed that Alzamora plans to move both riders up to Grand Prix for 2015, when Alex Marquez and Alex Rins move on to Moto2. Having Quartararo miss the first two opening rounds would have put the team in a difficult situation.
The age change was not the only rule change made by the Grand Prix Commission. A change was also made to the starting grid procedure, forcing riders to switch off their engines and be pushed to their grid positions.
That rule is aimed at reducing the speeds at which riders cut through what is often a very busy grid, with team members, photographers, journalists and guests all wandering around the grid.
A number of changes to the Moto3 technical regulations were also made, all of them pertaining to costs. The aim of the changes is in closing some of the loopholes by which manufacturers have been circumventing the price caps on parts. Whether this will be successful remains to be seen.
Source: GP Commission
This article was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.
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