Let's Talk About It

By Victoria Taylor

Over the last few months there have been significant complaints from much of Grand Prix motorcycle racing’s existing fanbase about the potential changes Liberty Media and Dorna Sports have been making to the sport. Things like changing championship counts, potential requirement to wear the number one plate as champion and making the riders stand for the national anthem have been ripped apart with allegations surrounding a lack of respect for the sports culture and history in an attempt to water it down and broaden the appeal for Formula one’s fanbase. 

While these discussions have some level of merit it’s not what I want to talk about today because it has been acting as something of a smokescreen for a much more insidious issue that the commercialisation of the sport could bring about. For me, and I imagine many others, the awful Moto3 crash between Noah Dettwiler and Jose Antonio Rueda ripped off any and all blinders in the worst way possible. Is the watering down of sporting culture really that important when the rider’s health might be being put at risk for money?

There are two main issues I’m going to be discussing here which have arisen from the accident at the Malaysian GP: the removal of Moto2 and Moto3 warmups and the content first mentality demonstrated on the Sunday. While there are still other safety issues which need resolved within the sport these two are directly related to attempts at expansion with a commercial incentive driving it. 

To begin with the issue of the removal of the Moto2 and Moto3 warmups in favour of holding a MotoGP riders parade that benefits precisely no one. This isn’t exactly a new concept with the warmups having been gotten rid of at the start of 2022 and rider parades having happened on occasion since as early as 2014 but it is one that has become significantly more prominent, it is also one that is looked at in a very negative light. While none of the riders have stated it outright there have been suggestions recently that the increased demands on the MotoGP riders themselves during a weekend outside of racing related activities could end up being to a significant detriment to their ability to rest, focus and race well. 

“I mean, always they are asking more, more and more, and someday will explode, let’s say,”¹ is one such quote given by Marc Marquez, a man who is a highly respected veteran of the sport and has been openly against many of the more recent changes it has been experiencing. 

While there is concern about how safe putting such a strain on the older riders is; the main point of danger here is with the lower classes and the young kids that populate them who are no longer being given a chance to test their bikes or the track conditions before they race.

The Moto3 crash at Sepang was caused by Rueda hitting into Dettwiler’s back at high speeds while the young Swiss rider was riding slowly and attempting to pull off the track due to technical issues he was having with his bike and both of them had to be taken directly to hospital with Dettwiler being in critical condition for a period of days. 

A warm-up session during race days allows for the riders to test out the functioning of their bikes, make sure everything is working as it should, make last moment set-up changes and get used to any differences post-qualifying in a way that’s more similar to a racing lap than the singular sighting lap at the start of the race which often requires specific management. 

There is, obviously, no guarantee that the issues that occurred with Dettwiler’s bike would have been spotted during a warm-up but it is rather likely that him and his team would have at least suspected that something is off; if the riders had been given the extra track time on Sunday the crash might have been able to have been avoided entirely and we wouldn’t have two heavily injured twenty year olds. The presence of warm-ups cannot always prevent in race technical issues or crashes from happening but they do significantly reduce risks and every risk reduction measure that can be taken should be when dealing with the potential of these riders losing their lives because it has not been. 

The second issue is what I referred to earlier as a ‘content first mentality’. What I mean when I use this phrase is the order of priorities that is obvious when those in charge of running a race weekend decide to hold a Moto3 race straight after a bad crash and make these riders compete without knowing whether or not their friends and gridmates are even going to be alive by the time that they have crossed the finish line. 

Instead of taking into account the clear lack of focus that the younger riders would have which increases further crash risk as well as the no doubt detrimental effects racing in such a situation would have on their mental health it was decided that it was more important to have a Moto3 race with a podium and a winner for fans to watch despite the seasons champion being in hospital. 

Of course some level of consideration should be taken for the organisers in that these weekends take a lot of work to run and it is difficult to make last moment changes but the aftermath from the crash meant that changes were having to be made anyway in the form of Moto2 being moved later in the day in order to allow the main MotoGP race to run at the correct time. The more reasonable and considerate move here would have been to, at a minimum, run the Moto2 race before the MotoGP as was originally intended and reschedule the Moto3 for afterwards though it would have been preferable if they did not run it at all.

Increased safety in the sport benefits everyone; the rider’s in obvious ways, the fans because it is a heartbreaking tragedy when bad crashes occur and the people right at the top which want to expand the sport. Liberty Media and Dorna should be aware that the main reason I’ve received from fans of car racing and Formula One for not wanting to watch MotoGP is how scary and frequent crashes are and the levels of injury that the rider’s often receive. If expanding the sports reach is the goal then compromising safety standards like they have been is only going to be counterproductive. 

1. The quote is sourced from a Crash article by Lewis Duncan dated 15^th September 2025