In a surprise move Hiroshi Yasukawa, the former Director of the motorsport division of Bridgestone tyres has been hired by Dorna the commercial rights holder of MotoGP as Advisor to CEO, Carmelo Ezpelata.  This has taken the media by storm and has generated curiosity which in turn has started throwing up theories.  Though Dorna has only said that his appointment is strengthen the FIM MotoGP Championships through his insights, it is being speculated that there is more to this than meets the eye.  In his former position, Yasukawa came into contact with all manufacturers involved in Formula1 and MotoGP and is believed to command respect from all of them.  It is well known that grid sizes in MotoGP have been a big problem for sometime now and while a few years ago grid sizes in World Superbike were large they have now dwindled to 22 even though that is significantly higher than the grid size of MotoGP.  Next year is a crucial year for both championships with MotoGP proposing a Claiming Rule Team (CRT) class (some are calling it Moto1), which will allow for engines based on production motorcycles of one litre capacity custom fitted into prototype chassis and with Paolo Flammini and Infront, rights holders of World Superbike Championships crying foul.  Flammini’s contention is that this is a violation of the understanding between MotoGP which is supposed to allow only prototype machines and World Superbikes which is to allow only production based machines.  Ezpelata has argued that since there is no stock chassis involved it is still a prototype only racing.  In this fight the support of Japanese factories will be crucial since in MotoGP with the exception of Ducati all other manufacturers are Japanese.  Of these only Honda and Yamaha have committed to 2012 and beyond while Suzuki has cut its involvement this year to one bike only in MotoGP and World Superbikes respectively.  Suzuki has not committed anything to next year.  Kawasaki withdrew from the sport at the end 2008.  Yasukawa’s role could be crucial in not only getting Japanese support for the CRT category but perhaps to bring Suzuki back full fledged into the sport.  There is also speculation that Kawasaki engines from the ZX-10 R which have been considered potent could be asked make a comeback with custom chassis builders.  All in all it is going to be very, very interesting in the coming months.