In an interview for Italian magazine Motosprint, the Italian argued that none of the private teams have the power to challenge for race wins of championship titles any more. Ever since the MotoGP has switched to 800cc bikes, works' teams did not have any problem in sharing titles among themselves.
According to Rossi, this problem could easily be solved by convincing the manufacturers to sell their bikes to private teams instead of simply destroying them at the end of each season.
“Our bikes are so sophisticated that only a few manufacturers can do them. So the riders are few as well, and there are no privateers anymore. Until 2006 a privateer like Melandri could fight for the title, but since 2007, with the 800cc bikes, the gap between works teams and privateers has become huge. MotoGP has become too elitist and that's not good,” argued Rossi for the aforementioned source.
“Why do my bikes get crushed under the presser at the end of the year, instead of being sold to a privateer team that would then be able to field two more riders? We've reached such a high level that Yamaha doesn't want others to see how it makes its bikes, so it would rather crush them. But this way it's difficult to get a nice grid, which in my opinion should have at least 24 riders,” added the Italian.
The highest ranked privateer in the MotoGP last season was JiR Team Scot's Andrea Dovizioso. However, he didn't pose a real threat to the leading riders, as he scored his first and only podium of the year late in the season, in Malaysia.
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