In 2007, MotoGP made a similar transition from the ‘rough and wild’ 990cc engines, to lower capacity 800cc engines. The newer regulations at the time were intended to limit the top speeds of the bike for safety reasons.

Valentino Rossi famously called the switch to 800cc in 2007 as the biggest mistake MotoGP has ever made ‘in the last 15 years’.

“The 990 motorcycle was ‘rough’ and wild, but with a great motor and a lot of power. The 800 is worse, simply worse, it is the same motorcycle with less power.

“There were big battles and large slides – this is what the public wants, no? The 990 slid a lot on the entry to the turns, but above all on the exit of the corners.”

The transition to lower-capacity engines resulted in bike engine designers looking to compensate for lost speed, which ultimately led to bikes with extra revs and overreliance on electronics.

The issue with extra revs was that it was detrimental to the engine’s health, resulting in more reliability issues, higher fuel consumption, and more engine rotations per season, which skyrocketed the engine costs.

Another avenue where the engine designers were able to find speed was through the use of electronics, which according to the riders, made the bikes less spectacular to ride.

The overly expensive 800cc engines led to a relatively poorer quality of racing as well, with only the established factories of Yamaha, Honda, and Ducati being able to compete at the front, whereas struggling factories like Kawasaki and Suzuki lamenting down the field due to increased costs, resulting in both manufacturers pulling out at the end of the 2009 and 2011 seasons, respectively.

The number of teams also dropped significantly during those years, which resulted in a lesser number of riders competing in the Grand Prix, meaning points were almost always available for the lower teams.

The 800cc era did see fresh faces emerge at the top, with Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo winning their premier-class world championships alongside Valentino Rossi. But despite countering Rossi’s dominance, the racing spectacle declined overall, with a huge gap appearing between the factory and satellite teams.

Realistically, there were only four riders ( Rossi, Stoner, Lorenzo, and Pedrosa, or ‘Fantastic Four’ if you want to call them) who could battle it out at the front and in most cases the fastest among this group would sail into the distance at the earliest.

It took over two years before we witnessed a last-lap showdown for the win at the infamous Catalunya Grand Prix where Valentino Rossi made his memorable last-corner pass on Jorge Lorenzo.

There were also other famous battles during that era like the infamous 2008 Laguna Seca but those were few and far between.

800cc was also marred by dominant season performances from Valentino Rossi (2008), Casey Stoner (2007 and 2011), and Jorge Lorenzo (2010) which highlighted the scarcity of competition each rider faced in their championship-winning seasons.

To make matters worse, Dani Pedrosa set an all-time top speed record in 2009 at 349 km/h, which defied all intents and purposes for the new regulations to be implemented in the first place.