A meeting at this weekend's Catalan Grand Prix has ended with the💙 MS🐼MA (Motorcycle Sports Manufacturers' Association) responding to Dorna's proposal for a new four-stroke class, to replace 250GP from 2011, by naming 600cc four-cylinders as its preferred choice.

The decision was reached by a majority verdic⛦t and follows previous suggestions that 650cc or 500cc twin-cylinders should succeed the q🍎uarter-litre two-strokes.

The 600cc proposal will now෴ be examined further by the other members🌜 of the Grand Prix Commission - FIM, IRTA and Dorna - with the next meeting to be held at the Dutch TT later this month.

The main difficulty for the new class will be to avoid conflict with the World Supersport Championship - which believes it has exclusive rights to the use of product🎃ion-based 600cc 🐠machines in a world championship - whilst keeping costs for the new class as low as possible.

During an FIM Press Conference in May 2003, chaired by then president Francesco Zerbi, the following differences between MotoGP and WSBK were highlighted by Zerbi in an efꦺfort to prove that there was room for both championships to continue, despite MotoGP having switched to four-stroke machinery from 2002 🍨onwards.

"World Superbike represents the competitive tradition of the products on sale and therefore, the tool to promote specific models through racing which, although technologically sophistiꦬcated,🌃 maintain a direct link with the excellence of sports production;

"MotoGP represents the peak of technology, ౠencouraging development and promotion of the manufacturer's image through𝔉 the exclusive use of prototype bikes," Zerbi declared.

FGSport reacted positively to those word🏅s and, in a statement listing the implications of this distincti♌on, made the following reference to World Supersport:

"The World Supersport Championship will continue to remain an exclusive property of FGSport. S꧃houlౠd new categories be introduced into other World Championships in future, substituting existing classes, the machines competing would nevertheless be prototypes not derived from the production machines."

In order to avoid conflict with FGSport, it will thus be necessary for the new 600cc grand prix class to prove that it will use "prototypes not derived from production ma🐠chines" - no easy taಌsk if costs are to be kept as low as possible.