Here's A Detailed View At The New Weekend Format As MotoGP Announces Sprint Races For 2023
Back in August, Dorna Sports announced the introduction of MotoGP Sprint Races for the 2023 season. Now, they give an update on the new weekend format.
In an exceptional press conference on Saturday, Dorna showed the public their new, revised weekend format as Sprint Races will enter the calendar in 2023.
The Sprint races will be half the length of the Grand Prix with 12 points awarded to the winner, nine for second place, seven for third place and from there counting backwards til ninth place.
The grid of the Grand Prix on Sunday won’t be effected by Saturday’s sprint race. Teams will only be allowed 12 litres of fuel for the Sprint Races in order to staying in the sustainibilty Moto of MotoGP.
For many statistic nerds and MotoGP history fans, the introduction of sprint races was a fear inducing surprise. Old records like the wins per season and so on were at risk.
Fans feared Marquez’ 12 wins in a single season would mean nothing after 2023 – Image provided by Motorsport Images
Dorna has thought about this and circumvents the problem by introducing a new stat for wins in sprint races. The number of race wins (resp. Grand Prix wins) will not be effected by Sprint race victories
Weekend Schedule
Most importantly for everybody in th epaddock however is the question how a 2023 season race weekend will look like. With another session squeezes in, it could be quite a full weekend for most members of the paddock.
First and foremost Free Practices will be renamed to Practices. The then Practice 2 will be a 60 minute session in order to give the teams more time for testing their bikes.
Free Practice 3 and 4 will be merged into a single 30 minute Free Practice session, not counting towards the qualification for Q1 and Q2.
MotoGP qualifying will be moved to an earlier time in order to give the teams time to prepare for the Sprint race on Saturday afternoon.
Controversial Changes On Sunday
Most controversial on the new weenend schedule is the vanishing of Warm Up sessions for the smaller classes.
It seems like Moto2 and Moto3 have become more of a side dish to the main course MotoGP. Warm up sessions for Moto2 and Moto3 are replaced with a 30 minute long Rider Fan Show.
This “event” is supposed to help fans at the track and on TV see more of their “favourite rider, their heros”, as Carlos Ezpeleta phrases it in the press conference.
However, there is no exact plan for the Rider Fan Show yet. “At the moment we are still working on it. But it will be part of the race Sunday”, explains Ezpeleta.
