As the two major categories of motor sport, F1 and MotoGP have always maintained a bond that, depending on the time, has been more or less close. What’s more, a long, long time ago, there were great drivers who went from motorcycles to F1 and even managed to make history like John Surtees, who is today the only champion in history in 500 and F1. The also deceased Mike Hailwood came to F1 and even Damon Hill competed on motorcycles before moving to single-seaters.
More recently we saw Doohan, Rossi, Márquez, Lorenzo and Pedrosa get into F1 and even some of them, like Rossi and Márquez, had the opportunity to consider a future on four wheels that they ended up rejecting. The fact is that this MotoGP-F1 link has been there since time immemorial, but now it has reached the next level.
And Liberty Media is now the owner of the rights to both championships, which are now completely twinned. So much so that one of the great fantasies in which F1 and the Motorcycle World Championship shared the track on the same weekend will come true at COTA this Saturday.
Of course, we will be very far from what everyone dreamed of and that, why not, we could see in the future in the form of the long-awaited Superprestige that Jaime Algersuari and his team made great. And there will be no competition but an exhibition of the MotoGP on one of the tracks that both championships share.
The MotoGP will take to the track before the F1 FP3
On Saturday, from 11:40 to 12:00 local time, Dani Pedrosa, Nicolo Bulega, Andrea Dovizioso and Lorenzo Savadori will be on the track with the KTM, Ducati, Yamaha and Aprilia MotoGP respectively. Only Honda, which has more complications with the issue of riders due to injuries and medical absences, will be absent from the event that will take place at the same time as the Australian MotoGP GP. A notable drop since it is the only brand present in both championships.
It will be a way in which the local public and also through screens around the world can have the opportunity to truly understand what a MotoGP is and how impressive machines are that, although they are not as fast in curves as an F1, they accelerate more and are much faster on the straight despite the fact that they exit the curve slower than the cars and have to brake many meters earlier.
As if all this were not enough, we must not overlook the fact that the motorcycle driver is really seen and that, unlike the more than questioned current F1 races, in MotoGP what the car drivers have to do is not even remotely managed. In short, MotoGP is pure speed, courage and talent. That is why it will always be much more passionate and much better sports product than F1 itself, where the fanfare is even much more important.
Maybe that’s why the direction that Liberty is taking to the MotoGP World Championship tastes like burnt horns…
