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The MotoGP is preparing to start again. Carmelo Ezpeleta has promised a season calendar during the next few days, and the health safety protocol has already been presented to constructors and to the Spanish authorities, who will have to give the okay for the first double appointment in Jerez, on June 19th and 26th.
Limiting contacts to a minimum, reducing staff on the circuit, keeping safety distances, are the key words to be able to start racing again after the Coronavirus pandemic.
Everyone will have to make sacrifices, but some more than others. There'll be no spectators in the stands, and journalists won't be able to report the race weekend on site. Or at least, there won't be those of the so-called independent press, those that write for newspapers or websites.
Dorna, in fact, has decided that only TV broadcasters will be able to send their correspondents on site. The reason is also easy to understand: TV broadcasters pay good money for world championship rights and want privileged treatment, which the MotoGP organizer has granted them. According to what we found out, each TV can be present with five people: two journalists, two operators, and a coordinator.
And everyone else? They'll have to stay home and try to provide the most accurate information possible by relying on telephones and online conferences. We can easily see that this will compromise freedom of information, with the risk of having a unilateral and politically correct communication that will be unproductive and uninteresting for everyone, especially for fans.
Photographers will also have the same problem, as the plan envisages admitting a maximum of twelve, who'll do all the work for both the agencies and teams. The others will have to stay home, unable to work... and earn.
Logically, the MotoGP cannot be the same after the health emergency that invaded the world, but it makes you doubt (hopefully we're wrong) that the Coronavirus is as an excuse to get rid of any possible disturbance, as are the independent and non-paying press often perceived.
Fans, therefore, will not only have to settle for seeing their favorite riders only on TV, but also being offered a means of communication that is filtered and not free.
Journalists in recent weeks have made themselves available to find a solution with Dorna, aware of the need to find a compromise in a difficult situation, and ready to give up something for the common good, but their request was not acknowledged.
They claim that, in difficult times, the opportunity exists to improve the system. Right now, it seems like an occasion was wasted. Not to mention that it would be used to solve a problem. And the risk is that we'll no longer understand the difference between a virtual Grand Prix, which we have reluctantly gotten used to in the past weeks, and a real one.
