Revealed final yr in the course of the Austrian Grand Prix, MotoGP is making probably the most radical format shake-up to a race weekend for many years in 2023.
On the Saturday of all 21 rounds this season, a dash race operating to half the space of the principle grand prix will happen.
It’s a format tweak that’s set to have main ramifications on the future of the 2023 world championship.
Forward of this weekend’s first spherical of the season in Portugal, right here is every thing you might want to find out about MotoGP dash races.
Why is MotoGP operating dash races?
MotoGP is at the moment attempting to re-position itself within the motorsport panorama amidst a drop in curiosity within the collection.
The collection tried to spice up this by releasing a behind-the-scenes docuseries entitled MotoGP Limitless on Amazon Prime in March. However the collection was deemed a failure and a second season of it was shelved not long into filming.
In a bid to raised perceive what it wanted to do, MotoGP house owners Dorna Sports activities ran a world fan survey together with Motorsport Network – which had over 100,000 responses.
One concept that was given enormous help was to introduce a dash race to the grand prix weekend format, copying an analogous transfer Formulation 1 made in 2021 and what World Superbikes has been doing since 2019.
It’s hoped dash races will provide higher worth for followers each watching from the monitor and from residence, which in flip ought to appeal to extra sponsorship and enhance general worldwide publicity.
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Group
Photograph by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
When will MotoGP dash races happen?
From the 2023 season, MotoGP will run dash races on the Saturday of each grand prix occasion.
This dash race will happen at 3pm native time for every occasion, with the standard qualifying session taking place earlier within the day to determine the grid for it.
How will the weekend format change for dash races?
With the addition of a dash race to each weekend of the season, the schedule for every grand prix has been altered.
Friday will proceed to function two follow classes, however will now happen later than earlier than.
FP1 will happen at 10:45am native time and run for 45 minutes as earlier than, whereas FP2 now takes place at 3pm native time and runs for an hour. In all situations on a race weekend, MotoGP classes will happen after Moto2 and Moto3.
In contrast to earlier than, the mixed occasions on the finish of Friday’s operating will decide who goes into Q2 instantly for qualifying and who has to face the knockout Q1 stage.
FP3 on Saturday morning takes place at 10:10am native time and run for 30 minutes, successfully turning into the session FP4 was.
Immediately after FP3, qualifying will happen from 10:50am to 11:30am native time, taking in Q1 and Q2. The grid order for each the dash race and the grand prix will likely be determined on this qualifying session.
The dash race will happen at 3pm native time.
Sunday’s schedule has additionally been barely altered, with MotoGP the one class getting a warm-up session, which has now been decreased from 20 minutes to 10 and can happen at 9:45am native time.
As is conventional, the grand prix will happen at 2pm native time in any respect European occasions.
What number of factors will likely be awarded for dash races?
As it’s a half-distance race, half factors will likely be awarded for the dash race, with solely the highest 9 riders scoring.
The scoring system follows as such: 12, 9, 7, 6, 5, four, three, 2, 1.
The present scoring system for the Sunday grand prix will stay in place, that means a most of 37 factors is on provide each weekend for a complete of 777 throughout the 21-round season.
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Group
Photograph by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Will dash race wins depend within the file books?
Dash race victories will likely be counted individually to grand prix wins, that means the winner of a dash won’t go within the historical past books as an official GP winner.
How can followers watch MotoGP dash races in 2023?
MotoGP dash races will likely be a part of the traditional Saturday broadcast. Examine the schedule of your MotoGP broadcaster to maintain updated every race weekend.
Are the technical guidelines completely different for MotoGP dash races?
Whereas most present laws will stay in place for the dash race as they might for the principle grand prix, there are some tweaks to pay attention to.
Gasoline hundreds will likely be restricted to an allowance of 12 litres for the dash as an alternative of the 22L allowed for the grand prix.
Monitor limits guidelines have additionally been tweaked for the dash race, with the variety of allowed infringements earlier than a penalty is awarded being lower from 5 to 3.
Any penalty copped in a dash race for an incident will likely be carried into the principle grand prix, likewise any punishments handed out pre-race.
Tyre guidelines won’t change for the dash race and there will likely be no particular dash race tyres, as there’s in World Superbikes.
As a result of the weekend format has been tweaked to accommodate dash races, there isn’t any want so as to add additional engines to groups’ allocation because the mileage for every grand prix weekend would be the similar because it was in 2022.
