The International Motorcycling Federation has officially announced that the 125cc class will be eliminated in the 2012 Grand Prix World Championship season. The 125 class will be replaced by the Moto3 class. This announcement was made on August 14 at the Brno circuit in the Czech Republic. The Moto3 class will be consisting of motorcycles that are powered by four-stroke engines with single cylinder 250cc and maximum bore of 81mm. At the 2012 Grand Prix World Championship season, the Moto3 class will be joining the Moto2 class, which features motorcycles powered by 600cc 4-stroke engines, and the premier MotoGP class.
The present of the Moto3 class is the implication of the end of two-stroke Grand Prix era. The 2012 Grand Prix World Championship will be the beginning of a new era in which the MotoGP class will be switching to 1000cc engines. The Moto3 class will be open to various manufacturers with each of them is expected to supply engines for as little as 15 riders. The new regulation for Moto3 class stated that the Moto3 engines must be engineered for at least three races and it should not cost more than 10,000 Euros.
Other than the announcement around Moto3 class, the FIM also announced other new regulation for the 2010 Grand Prix season. The new conception is that the number of engines used for the race will be added. Normally, MotoGP teams can only use up to 6 engines, but now the teams can use up to 9 engines. However, this regulation only applies to MotoGP teams which did not win at least two dry races during the 2008 and 2009 period.
