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MotoGP has copied F1 with the Sprint Race, moving it up a notch and even putting 21 events on the calendar. The entire championship. An epochal revolution, with a different format both from that of Superbike, in which the Superpole race for the first 9 classified forms the starting grid for Race 2, and from F1, which however is now changing.
From the Baku GP, in fact, the Sprint of the top motor sport formula will race in its own right, even with its own qualifying which will be held on Saturday morning, while the actual qualifying, brought forward to Friday, will serve to define the grid of the real GP, on Sunday.
Saturday's qualifying - or rather: Sprint Shoot Out - will be structured in three short sessions, with one set of tyres each (so much for sustainability!). Q1, 12 minutes, Q2, 10', Q3, 8'.
In this way, the Sprint Race will be a race in its own right, not linked to the actual GP, given that it will not determine the grid. Formula 1 enthusiasts will therefore be able to see two distinct races, even if in the end both will be valid for the championship since the Sprint will award points: 8 for the first and then climbing up to eighth.
The result of this latest change to the Grand Prix format is that the teams will have only one free practice session available throughout the weekend, on Friday morning. In the afternoon, in fact, with the usual formula, they will fight for the pole position of the Sunday GP. Saturday will therefore make history in itself, qualifying and the race for the Sprint.
The result (desired, but we don't know if desirable) is that every day there will be a battle for something. Was it necessary? Who knows? Maximum respect for Stefano Domenicali, but from the outside, as an old F1 journalist who was used to building a story over the span of the Grand Prix, it seems to us that he is giving up films of substance for a 'short'.
After all, this is the trend of the whole social media movement: short fragments of things to nibble at while doing something else, sitting on the subway, stopped at the traffic light, having dinner with friends with eyes on the mobile phones.
A throwaway, short narrative, so as to be consumed with little attention and above all without linking one fact to the next.
Exactly the opposite of what the so-called 'boomers' - who loved to build their own history, wait, imagine - liked. Isn't the pleasure of waiting for the date better than the date itself?
OK, the world is changing and between reels and stories on FB and Instagram we too like to see fragments of reality detached from each other. A reality detached from reality, on closer inspection.
This increases the number of people who watch, but certainly not that of those who understand. In other words, we are moving towards a Motorsport for non-motor sports enthusiasts in particular. In short, generalist fans who perhaps start to follow F1 or MotoGP, more because of what Lewis Hamilton or Fabio Quartararo wears than for their passion for driving and speed.
Perhaps, however, for some of them the germ, 'the need for speed' will still enter the blood. Perhaps. Who knows? We will see.
