From MotoGP.com files

Last year's MotoGP World Championship, won by a dominant Casey Stoner, was universally criticized for producing runaway wins. And statistics prove it. In 2006, the average winning margin in MotoGP was 2.3 seconds while last year that average more than doubled to 5.4 seconds. Television audiences in key European markets plummeted.

MotoGP Chairman Carmelo Ezpeleta went on record last week saying that the time had come to consider introducing a standard ECU in order to control the rapidly developing electronics technology in MotoGP. Obviously, this would mean following Formula 1 racing, and banning traction control.

But clearly the most influential critic has been Italian rider Valentino Rossi, who has disliked traction control since he first experienced it. In fact, he said his decision not to go to Formula 1 was largely because of the intrusiveness of traction control.

Ironically, Formula 1 will be free of traction control thanks to the use of a standard ECU unit on all cars in 2008 while in MotoGP traction control is now of crucial importance.

Rossi believes that when he made the step up to 500cc in 2000 things were much harder. "It's true that I was quite fast right from the start in MotoGP, but it is still completely different," Rossi declared. "The difference is that to go fast on a 500 you were forced to take risks and many times you crashed hard. Now it seems nobody crashes and it is easier to find the limit."