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Revealed final yr through 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 working to half the gap 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 part it’s worthwhile to learn about MotoGP dash races.
Why is MotoGP working dash races?
Alex Rins, Workforce Suzuki MotoGP leads at first
Picture by: Dorna
MotoGP is presently attempting to re-position itself within the motorsport panorama amidst a drop in curiosity within the sequence.
The sequence tried to spice up this by releasing a behind-the-scenes docuseries entitled MotoGP Limitless on Amazon Prime in March. However the sequence was deemed a failure and a second season of it was shelved not lengthy into filming.
In a bid to higher perceive what it wanted to do, MotoGP house owners Dorna Sports activities ran a world fan survey at the side of Motorsport Network – which had over 100,000 responses.
One concept that was given big assist was to introduce a dash race to grand prix weekend format, copying an identical transfer Method 1 made in 2021 and what World Superbikes has been doing since 2019.
It’s hoped dash races will supply higher worth for followers each watching from the observe and from house, which in flip ought to entice extra sponsorship and enhance total worldwide publicity.
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 same old qualifying session taking place earlier within the day to determine the grid for it.
How will the weekend format change for dash races?
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Workforce
Picture by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
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 characteristic 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 cases on a race weekend, MotoGP classes will happen after Moto2 and Moto3.
Not like earlier than, the mixed instances on the finish of Friday’s working will decide who goes into Q2 straight 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.
Instantly 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 probably 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 lowered 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 probably be awarded for dash races?
As it’s a half-distance race, half factors will probably 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 supply each weekend for a complete of 777 throughout the 21-round season.
Will dash race wins depend within the report books?
Miguel Oliveira, RNF MotoGP Racing
Picture by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Dash race victories will probably be counted individually to grand prix wins, that means the winner of a dash is not going to go within the historical past books as an official GP winner.
How can followers watch MotoGP dash races in 2023?
MotoGP dash races will probably be a part of the traditional Saturday broadcast. Verify the schedule of your MotoGP broadcaster to maintain updated every race weekend.
Are the technical guidelines totally different for MotoGP dash races?
Whereas most present rules will stay in place for the dash race as they’d for the principle grand prix, there are some tweaks to concentrate on.
Gasoline masses will probably be restricted to an allowance of 12 litres for the dash as an alternative of the 22L allowed for the grand prix.
Observe limits guidelines have additionally been tweaked for the dash race, with the variety of allowed infringements earlier than a penalty is awarded being reduce from 5 to 3.
Any penalty copped in a dash race for an incident will probably be carried into the principle grand prix, likewise any punishments handed out pre-race.
Tyre guidelines is not going to change for the dash race and there will probably be no particular dash race tyres, as there may be in World Superbikes.
As a result of the weekend format has been tweaked to accommodate dash races, there isn’t a want so as to add further engines to groups’ allocation because the mileage for every grand prix weekend would be the identical because it was in 2022.
