As usual every Friday Grand Prix, most of the drivers met at Le Mans with Carmelo Ezpeleta , the CEO of Dorna, at the meeting of the Safety Commission.
As confirmed by Motorsport.com , one of the issues discussed on this occasion was the large drop in wages for riders in the heavyweight category. At the same time, the defenselessness of the drivers against the teams when they want to do without them was also discussed, as happened last week to Romano Fenati , fired from SpeedUp.
“Most of the riders, especially those in Moto3 and Moto2, find themselves facing absolute helplessness when the teams decide to break with them unilaterally. In the ‘safety’ we have discussed with Carmelo the specific issue of Fenati. When a team wants to fire a driver, they do it. But when a pilot wants to leave, he cannot do it”, explained one of the attendees at this last meeting.
The conversation with the CEO of Dorna focused on the ostensible reduction that the manufacturers are trying to implement in the pilot market, and that has led some factories to offer authentic ‘garbage contracts’, to riders who risk their lives at 300 Km/h on top of a motorcycle.
“It cannot be that such precarious salaries are being offered. when Fabio Quartararo went up to MotoGP he had to sign for 80,000 euros, and those amounts are what they are paying some riders, ”says another of those present.
In this last meeting, Ezpeleta explained to the pilots the current economic situation that manufacturers are going through, with the pandemic and the war. This context advises restraint in spending. Ezpeleta put Suzuki, who will leave the World Championship at the end of the year, as a clear example of the current instability.
“MotoGP is a great show and a great business, which moves a lot of money, and the riders are the clowns of this circus. We understand the current situation, but we cannot run for free”, says this testimony, which asks us not to reveal his name.
Unlike the F1 drivers, who have a powerful association, the GPDA, the MotoGP drivers have never considered it appropriate to create a union to defend their interests. This is a possibility that, at the moment, is not yet contemplated, but it is not ruled out for the future either.
“We have never had a leader with enough concern to create a drivers’ association. Surely the right one was Valentino Rossi, and although it was talked about many times, he never took the step of taking it forward”, Pol Espargaró explained this Friday, when asked by Motorsport.com if the riders had the concern to associate.
In full boiling of the market, the teams are offering renewals downwards. Aprilia has presented Aleix Espargaró with a contract for 2023 below his current salary, while Suzuki, for example, before announcing his unexpected fright, had offered, in a first meeting, Joan Mir, 2020 world champion, a renewal for a third of its current file, a downward trend that we already explained last March in the analysis: Why will MotoGP riders lose 11 million in salaries in 2022?
