IN
THE
WIND
P24
No Wildcards In MotoGP 2020
T
here will be no wildcard entries granted for any
of the four (MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3, MotoE)
classes during the 2020 MotoGP World Champion-
ship. This was confirmed during a Grand Prix Com-
mission (GPC) meeting held on April 30 and May 7.
The move quashes any hope of Jorge Lorenzo
making a one-off appearance in MotoGP for the
factory Yamaha team as part of his test rider du-
ties, but will likely impact the Moto2 and Moto3
grids more, who regularly allow select riders from
each host country to compete in one-off races
under the wildcard scheme.
"The likelihood of any events in 2020 needing
to be held behind closed doors means that it is
necessary to keep participant numbers to the ab-
solute minimum," the Grand Prix Commission said
in a statement. "It is also important to allow optimum
utilization of pit box space by the contracted teams.
"There is every intention to restore wild card en-
tries in 2021 but this decision will be reviewed prior
to the 2021 season." CN
Jorge Lorenzo's
chance of a
one-off race in
Catalunya are now
dashed with the
GPC ruling.
KTM, Aprilia Allowed To Continue Engine
Development
T
he recent Grand Prix Commission
meeting also dictated that conces-
sion teams KTM and Aprilia will be
allowed to continue development of
their MotoGP race motors until June 29,
2020, rather than have development
frozen like Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki and
Ducati.
A concession team is defined as a
team that has not scored sufficient podi-
um positions in the past two seasons, of
which KTM and Aprilia are eligible given
the only podium achieved by either outfit
was Pol Espargaro's third place at a rain-
soaked Valencia Grand Prix in 2018.
Either KTM or Aprilia will lose their concession status if they score six concession points, which must
be accrued by podium positions—similar to what happened at Suzuki—who lost their concession status
after Alex Rins and Andrea Iannone started regularly finishing on the podium in 2017 and 2018. CN
KTM and Aprilia will be allowed to continue developing
their engines for another month in MotoGP.
