Carmelo Ezpeleta General Director of Dorna, Jorge Viegas , President of the FIM, and Hervé Poncharal , President of IRTA confirmed this Saturday at the Red Bull Ring the news advanced on Friday by Motorsport.com , announcing that the next season 2023 the ends of Grand Prix week will feature a sprint race every Saturday afternoon.
At the moment, the decision, which is firm, is that this short race will be introduced and that it will not count for the classification of the grid, with the rest of the details pending to finish configuring it, listening and taking into account all the opinions, including those of the pilots.
“We have been looking at other sports and we are trying to adapt to offer a better show and we must be able to offer a program that can improve the show. Yesterday I spoke with the riders in the Safety Commission, but the issue of informing them is up to the teams”, said Ezpeleta before giving the floor to the president of the FIM, who was in charge of making the announcement.
“We are going to introduce a sprint race on Saturday afternoons in all the grand prix, not like in F1 (they only do it in certain circuits), we consider that after two years of COVID, the time has come to provide more exposure, we need more show and fill on Saturdays, details remain to be defined, but in principle these are the novelties.
The race will not count for the grid, which will be defined with a qualifying session, as it has been up to now”, reported Veigas before assuring that “the sprint races will be half of Sunday’s race, and the points awarded will also be half”.
The big controversy on Friday, from the drivers, is that they were not informed before making that decision.
“The drivers must be informed by their controllers, the teams, from the beginning we have always used those channels, we talk to the drivers about safety, but not about the format, yesterday we informed them taking advantage of the Safety Commission, but it is the teams who it should do it,” Ezpeleta said.
“The conversations with the pilots did not go badly, opinions were given and they will be taken into account. There will be a sprint race on Saturdays that will not work for the grid, but the rest will have to be finished and we will listen to all the parties. It’s something we do to improve the visibility of the championship.”
“On many occasions the riders think of themselves and I have seen many times the opinion of a rider change depending on the bike he is on”, said the Spanish leader, before assuring that “in no sport the contact of the riders It is bigger than in MotoGP”.
Ezpeleta also admitted that they had responded to the request of the fans through the worldwide survey organized by Dorna together with Motorsport Network . “The fans, for the most part, asked for a sprint race, and that it not count for the grid,” he acknowledged.
Hervé Poncharal , owner of the Tech3 team and president of IRTA (team association), explained how the events had unfolded.
“After the summer break we had a very important meeting and it was the first time we looked at this project, and from the beginning we liked it a lot. If we don’t move forward, we go back, even though our show is fantastic, the best, that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement,” he explained.
“It would be absurd if we don’t look at other competitions, all the teams gave support thinking that it will help the business, the media will echo it and the sponsors will win. We have in mind not to create inflation, the engines and tires will be the same , the number of laps will be very similar, we don’t want to give the riders more work, we want to give more emotion to the show. and 2023 will be a key year for MotoGP”, he added.
