Dorna took Suzuki's departure from MotoGP at the end of the 2011 season badly. After bending over backwards to accommodate the Japanese factory during their final few years in the class - giving Suzuki an exemption from the (now defunct) Rookie Rule, allowing the factory a larger engine allocation, and finally accepting the reduction from a two-rider effort to just a single entry, that of Alvaro Bautista - Suzuki finally pulled out of the series altogether, though they promised to return at a later date. Coming on top of Kawasaki's withdrawal ahead of the 2009 season, Suzuki were the second Japanese factory to depart the class after a string of broken promises.
So unsurprisingly, when Suzuki opened talks about a return to MotoGP, Dorna was hesitant. Their entry was to be subject to a number of restrictions; Suzuki would be made to pay penance for their initial abandoning of the series. Initially Suzuki were told that they would only be allowed to enter through an existing team, rather than creating their own infrastructure. The idea behind this was that none of the teams who had remained in the series should lose out just because Suzuki wanted to return. When it became clear that the teams which were candidates to aid Suzuki were really up to supporting a full factory effort, that idea was quietly dropped.
