MotoGP’s new-for-2023 weekend format will undergo an in-season change after all, the Grand Prix Commission has announced.
The introduction of the sprint for the MotoGP class had meant that in the first half of 2013 10 of 12 spots in Q2 were determined based on the combined classification from Friday, taking each rider’s best laptime from the two sessions.
But the opening practice session of the premier-class weekend will no longer count for riders’ advancing directly to Q2. Instead, this will be determined solely by the second session – which spans 60 minutes this year compared to the first session’s 45-minute runtime.
According to the GPC, the decision was reached “in electronic meetings held in July 2023” and comes with “unanimous agreement” between MotoGP teams.
This suggests a u-turn from Ducati, which had been called out last month for a “weird” decision to reportedly exercise a veto and seek to postpone the format change to 2024.
The revised format will now instead come into play starting with the August Silverstone round, which will mark the end of MotoGP’s current summer break.
It should prove popular among riders, who have by and large not enjoyed the pressure to equip a fresh soft tyre in the closing minutes of the opening practice session in order to produce an ‘insurance’ laptime – should the second session then prove slower than the first.
But a major influence on proceedings – and thus a major impact on crash and injury rates – still seems unlikely.
“It will be the same as it is now. Look at the laptimes, afternoon and morning,” said RNF Aprilia rider Miguel Oliveira, pointing out just how rare it is for first-practice times to be competitive relative to second-practice times.
“It would be in favour of not having the Q2 free practice pre-qualification. I would do this.
“But we have to adapt, it is the format and we have to deal with it the best we can, that’s our job.”
The decision also means another tweak to the nomenclature.
The first Friday session will now be known as Free Practice 1, while what follows in the afternoon will be dubbed Practice.
And the Saturday morning session preceding qualifying – this year’s replacement for what used to be FP4 – will now be listed as Free Practice 2.
