MotoGP crossover round, championship calendar, Silverstone Circuit, commercial contracts, track safety

Imagine the two biggest motorsport categories in the world lining up at the same track on the same weekend for three days of unprecedented racing action.

Forget Gather Round or Magic Round. The prospect of a Formula 1 and MotoGP crossover blows both out of the water.

The prospect seems fanciful. As the big beasts of the four-wheel and two-wheel worlds, the two premier-class championships have never shared an event. And as the two have professionalised and become big businesses in their own rights, one would think the chance of a mouth-watering crossover is diminishing with every passing year.

And yet with F1 fully in the throes of ambitious new management and with MotoGP casting the net wide for ways to revolutionise its own house, the idea of blockbuster meeting has appeared on the cards — albeit with a number of asterisks.

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“I have spoken with Stefano Domenicali to hold an F1 and motorcycle championship on the same weekend at the same circuit,” Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta told Spanish radio station COPE late last month. “We‘re thinking about it.

“We are going to study it, because it is not something simple. There are safety problems, because our measures in some cases do not match theirs. There are also sponsor problems.

“At the moment it cannot be done. But we are studying the possibility.”

The talks took place at the opening round of the MotoGP season in Portugal, where Domenicali was welcomed to wave the chequered flag.

The Italian F1 boss is no stranger to the two-wheel paddock — in fact one of Domenicali’s early acts upon taking the chairmanship in 2021 was to arrange for an F1 logo to appear on the back of both Pramac bikes, where it continues to reside today.

“Carmelo, Paolo (Campinoti, Pramac owner) and Stefano are close friends and both want to do more together to showcase our amazing events and sporting excellence to ensure more fans become followers of both series,” F1 said in a statement at the time.

And while it’s certainly a bit of a leap from minor bike sponsor to full-blown co-promoters, a joint round would certainly fit the cooperative brief.

But how realistic is it, and what are the potential hurdles for what would be a historic race meeting?

SAFETY IS THE PRIORITY

The first and most significant problem to overcome is a circuit configuration that ensures both drivers and riders enjoy their usual levels of safety.

Bikes and cars demand different things from their tracks. For the clearest demonstration, consider how many street tracks are on the MotoGP calendar: none. But whereas the lack of run-off and the closeness of the barriers are a huge safety risk to riders, in Formula 1 they pose no problem, and indeed F1 is growing its share of street circuits.

But even on permanent circuits — and the two categories share several such tracks already — F1 and MotoGP have diverse requirements.

Run-off areas are notably different. Circuits that cater primarily to cars prefer asphalt run-off that gives drivers a greater chance of catching mistakes before they end up in the barrier.

MotoGP, however, needs gravel run-off to catch and slow riders and bikes as they slide off the road. Even stone shape and preparation are important for two-wheel categories — Pol Espargaró’s sickening crash in Portugal this month was in part thanks to the Portimão gravel being too large and too compacted to slow him down. The series has threatened not to return unless track management fixes the issue for next year.

Barrier placement and type are crucial too, with MotoGP using air fences at key points around the track that act like airbags when riders hit the wall. This sort of fence would be useless for F1, which uses a combination of different barrier types to absorb the energy of a car crash assuming that the car itself is doing part of the work to protect the driver.

There are also smaller things, like the artificial grass some tracks put behind the kerbs to deter drivers from being too greedy with track limits. They’re generally frowned upon by two-wheel categories, which consider their slipperiness a safety hazard.

THE CANDIDATES

FIA, the governing body for four-wheel motorsport, and FIM, the same for two-wheel motorsport, use those sorts of safety elements and other considerations to grade tracks on their suitability to host different races. Both F1 and MotoGP require the highest grade from a track to host a championship round.

At last count there were 19 circuits that held both an FIA grade 1 licence and a FIM grade A licence.

Of those, 12 circuits are active on either the MotoGP or the F1 calendar this season, and of those 12, only five are hosting both categories this season.

Short of any new tracks being added to both lists, these are the give five candidates for a potential super grand prix round:

– Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain;

– Circuit of the Americas, United States of America;

– Losail International Circuit, Qatar;

– Red Bull Racing, Austria; and

– Silverstone Circuit, United Kingdom.

But safety and configuration are only the first part of the equation. Now we must figure out which track could actually be capable of hosting both categories at the same time.

COMMERCIAL CONSIDERATIONS ARE KEY

Sport isn’t just sport in 2023; it’s big business. MotoGP and Formula 1 are motorsport behemoths commanding massive sponsorship and broadcast revenue based on the exclusivity of their products.

This is arguably the biggest impediment to getting the deal done for a dual round. While both F1 and MotoGP both happen to be on Fox Sports and Kayo in Australia, they share broadcasters in few other countries.

Given most TV deals are sewn up on an exclusive basis and for many years at a time, each sport would be forced to renegotiate these contracts to allow for a crossover. That would almost certainly mean a reduced fee.

Still, each sport might be able to accept that in exchange for more money from trackside sponsors, which could be charged more for being exposed to more viewers.

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Or maybe not — F1 and MotoGP have very different commercial partners. As just one example, think about the amount of branding tyre suppliers Pirelli and Michelin pay for in their respective sports — would each be happy sharing with the other? Maybe they would be, but surely at a reduced price to their ordinary exclusive arrangements.

And both sports have stacks of various official suppliers — timekeepers, airlines, logistics, technology, communications and even beers. All would have to be renegotiated.

Broadcast control is another sticking point, with both F1 and MotoGP having gone to great expense to hone their television products. You can see the difference when you watch the races at any of their shared tracks back to back, and Motorsport Broadcasting ran an interesting analysis on F1’s one-off race at MotoGP favourite Mugello in 2020.

But it would be impractical to set up double the number of cameras and twice the production infrastructure. Which sport would be willing to cede control?

And then there’s the matter of pure physical space for both categories — and not only for the teams and sport personnel themselves but also for their hospitality offerings. The track would need to be big enough to cater to significant crowd demand too, especially given most F1 grands prix are selling out these days as it is.

THE WINNER

With all that in mind, there’s only one circuit currently hosting both categories that could feasibly do the double: Silverstone Circuit.

The track is unique on the short list thanks to its dual paddock set-up — the older ‘national’ paddock on the straight between Woodcote and Copse corners and the newer ‘wing’ paddock on the Hamilton straight between Club and Abbey.

Formula 1 has used the new ‘wing’ pit complex since it was opened in 2011, but for the last decade MotoGP has remained in the old building on the north end of the circuit. Though the bikes are due to make the switch to newer facilities this season to cut down on costs, it at least proves that both sets of infrastructure can be used.

Silverstone can also maximise what would be massive spectator interest thanks to its 140,000-spectator capacity.

The British track is the best solution to the problem of space, though to make the weekend work, both F1 and MotoGP would like have to give up on at least one of their two junior series, with enough space in the schedule for probably just Formula 2 and Moto2.

There would also have to be some alterations to the timing of sessions, with MotoGP and F1 running at roughly the same times on any given weekend.

Of course having a suitable track like Silverstone does little to solve the bigger commercial problems a dual round would face. But if F1 and MotoGP have the will to make it happen, then it can be done, even if it must be years in the making.

And if they pull it off, it’ll be one of the all-time great sporting crossovers.