MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

The acquisition of Dorna by Liberty Media turns out to be a lot more interesting than expected. The purchase raised a lot of questions - not least, how they expect to get it past the regulators in a number of countries and territories. But it also provided a glimpse of what the future might look like for MotoGP, and how different it would be under new ownership.

First, the details of the purchase. You can read a summary and the press release in a story from earlier today, but the basics are this:

“Toprak tries things that seem to be impossible but he makes them possible,” said a smiling Michael van der Mark following the Catalunya Round of WorldSBK. It’s hard to argue with the BMW Motorrad rider because his teammate, Toprak Razgatlioglu, dominated the headlines at the second round of the 2024 WorldSBK season.

Smashing the lap record in Superpole was impressive. Taking two last lap victories was stunning and tallied into a weekend that BMW will never forget. Toprak was the top points scorer in Catalunya and has immediately proved himself as a title contender once again. Winning races on the Kawasaki in 2019 or the Yamaha for the last four years was meeting expectations, but to do so with BMW has left his rivals with furrowed brows.

Scott Redding, a title contender when he was racing with Ducati, has been left scratching his head. When Toprak was signed Redding commented that he didn’t think Toprak was a better rider. After Catalunya he had changed his view. Garrett Gerloff, a podium finished in Catalunya in the past, said that he was in awe of what Razgatlioglu has been able to do.

Rider and bike

It was only Van der Mark who had a strong weekend and it was his performance that really proved that BMW has made progress. Qualifying on the second row and coming away with fourth in Race 2 was a good showing from the Dutchman ahead of his home round.

Why did Fabio Quartararo sign on for two more years with Yamaha? If some fans are to be believed, the answer is simple: Money. It pays to take what fans believe with a pinch of salt - the joy of fandom is that it is without nuance, a world of black and white, good and evil, right and wrong - but there is perhaps a germ of truth in there. If, as Motorsport.com's Oriol Puigdemont is reporting, Fabio Quartararo's choices were €12 million at Yamaha versus €4 million at Aprilia, then you can see why Quartararo found it hard to turn down Yamaha's offer.

But money is not the only factor in decisions such as these. A rider's salary is just one part of their income, and often not even the largest part. There are personal sponsorship deals with energy drinks, helmet companies, leathers manufacturers, sunglasses, boots, gloves. There are deals with bicycle makers, training equipment firms, nutrition companies. And there are deals to allow companies to use a rider's image, number, color scheme. And of course there is merch.

A little more than a week on from the announcement that Liberty Media is to buy Dorna, the Grand Prix of The Americas looms much larger in MotoGP's headlights. The US has always been the one market Dorna have longed to conquer, but the largest media market in the world has proved to be a particularly tough nut to crack. The success of Liberty in promoting F1 in the US will raise hopes of a revival of interest in MotoGP in the near future. The arrival of Trackhouse Racing, US-based and NASCAR linked, will play a role here.

If MotoGP is to be bigger in the United States of America, you have to question whether the Circuit Of The Americas in Austin, Texas, is the right place for it to start. Once a hip college town with a vibrant arts and music scene, the increasing number of tech companies migrating to that part of Texas have sent prices sky high in Austin and robbed the city of much of its charm. "Keep Austin Weird" signs are now more akin to Keep Calm And Carry On" posters, an appeal to a fake nostalgia rather than an instruction to resist crushing corporate conformism.

The track also has its problems. Built on a layer of clay that sucks in water, then dries out again, moving and shifting as it does means the track is never the same from one year to another. New bumps appear in different places each time MotoGP visits, leaving the riders with yet more things to learn at the track.

Tough times in Texas

The Thursday of a MotoGP weekend always feels like a bit of a phony war. Relatively little has happened since the last time the paddock convened, and there isn't a great deal for the riders to say which we don't already know. The track is usually pretty much the same as it was last year, and only the bikes and tires have changed a bit.

The Thursday before Austin had a little more interest than normal. There have been two big announcements in the three weeks between Portimão and Austin, of long-term importance to the sport. First, the news that Liberty Media would be buying 86% of Dorna, and thereby the rights to MotoGP, MotoE, the various Talent Cups, the FIM Junior World Championship, and the WorldSBK series. And earlier this week, the news that Fabio Quartararo had signed on with Yamaha for two more years.

At the Circuit Of The Americas, Dorna held a special press conference with CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta, Chief Sporting Officer Carlos Ezpeleta, and Chief Commercial Officer Dan Rossomondo, to give their perspective on the deal. It proved to be less informative than we might have hoped, but probably because our expectations were wrong. Dorna, after all have had little say in the matter. Current owners Bridgepoint Capital and Canadian pension fund CPPIB were the ones selling, and Liberty Media the party buying, and Dorna cannot say much about why the sellers were selling and the buyers were buying.

The good news for the MotoGP riders at the Circuit Of The Americas is that large parts of the track have been resurfaced. The bad news is that, as usual, the bumps in the parts of the track that haven't been resurfaced have gotten a bit worse.

That was particularly apparent going up the hill and into Turn 1. That is always a difficult part of the circuit; the combination of steep climb and hard braking - scrubbing off 250 km/h in just over 200 meters - means the front fork is buried. An engineer told me that this is the place on the calendar where the front is loaded the most. With all of the suspension travel used up, even unto the bump stops, only the front tire is left to absorb the bumps. And there are big bumps, as witnessed by the black marks going up the hill.

The new asphalt is much smoother, fortunately. Though it doesn't have as much grip as you might expect. In part, because it is a little green and dirty, but in part just because it is still so fresh. Asphalt needs to mature to reach maximum grip, and the new surface at COTA is not there yet.

"The new asphalt is not really good, it’s really slippery, so I struggled to turn in 16, 17 18," Jorge Martin said of the new surface. More grip arrived as more rubber got laid down. "It improved quite a lot from the morning. So I think it will improve," the Pramac Ducati rider told reporters.

Iron fist

Saturday was a day of two halves at the Circuit Of The Americas. FP2 looked promising, and then qualifying turned into a real show, with thrills, spills, and surprises. Maverick Viñales destroying the lap record, Pedro Acosta getting his first front row start, continuing his meteoric rise as a rookie, and Marc Marquez joining them on the front row. Jorge Martin crashing heavily twice, and still managing to salvage a spot on the second row, alongside the factory Ducatis of Pecco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini.

Martin owned up to both crashes. "I was coming really hot in the first lap for sure. Improving three tenths on the lap of yesterday already in the first sector, so I think it was going to be a good lap!" the Pramac Ducati rider said. "But then I was losing the front all the weekend in T11. So I tried a bit too much and yeah, you could see the replays that I was from the beginning already over the limit."

That was on his first run, and Martin didn't want waste his first tire, so he stuck with it. "I picked up the bike and I thought, the bike is OK, let's try for another lap." He was on course for the front row, but overconfidence in Turn 18 proved disastrous. "I was too aggressive on the throttle in that corner. I was lucky because if I highsided at that moment I wouldn't be here today talking with you, for sure."

The Circuit Of The Americas is not exactly known for producing great racing, but great racing is what we got. A fierce battle raged until the new master of COTA fought his way forward and controlled the last few laps.

A few quick thoughts late on Sunday night:

It is a truism that the MotoGP season only really gets underway once the series returns to Europe. That seems a little unfair, as if the riders have been putting their bodies on the line for naught over the first three rounds. After all, Jorge Martin's 80 points from three rounds is a great deal more than, say, 2022 and 2023 champion Pecco Bagnaia's 50 points, 2021 champion Fabio Quartararo's 19 points, and especially Pramac Ducati teammate Franco Morbidelli's total of 0.

It seems doubly unfair to speak of a "return to Europe", as if the Portuguese round at Portimão had been nothing more than a fever dream, or that its proximity to the ocean made it more Atlantic than European.

The news that Bimota is returning to WorldSBK in 2025 came as a surprise to the paddock. The withdrawal of Kawasaki as a full-factory effort from the series, after eight World Championships, blindsided many but what does it actually mean for the series?

In many ways it will be business as usual. Provec Racing, the Catalan team that has morphed into the Kawasaki Racing Team over the years, has been the factory supported squad for the championship since 2011. In that time the team, led by the Roda brothers, became the standard bearer of the series. This success culminated in Jonathan Rea’s unprecedented six titles in a row. Since 2021, though, the team and manufacturer have fallen on harder times.

Switching from Kawasaki to Bimota is a decision that has been a considerable time in the making. In 2019 Kawasaki Heavy Industries purchased Bimota. KHI is a massive company and their motorcycle division is a tiny part of a massive empire. With almost 40,000 employees KHI is involved in a myriad of industries including aeronautical, shipping, off-shore structures, rail and many more. Motorcycling is the part we care about but it’s only a small part of what makes that company tick.

Brand value