Written by: Rohan Brown, Edited by Vyas Ponnuri
Whether you have just started following MotoGP or you’re a returning fan, we hope to provide a comprehensive and simple guide to this fascinating series.
The teams
A typical MotoGP grid consists of two types of teams:
Factory teams - These are teams directly supported by the manufacturers, and receive major support from this collaboration, be it financially or technically. They are considered first for upgrades of any kind. So on and off the track, they are the direct representation of the manufacturer they partner with.
Some examples of factory teams in MotoGP are Ducati, Honda and Suzuki.
Satellite teams - Usually separate organisations from the factory teams, they do not receive the same level of support. These outfits use the same bikes as the factory teams, but without the newest upgrades available. Satellite teams rely more on sponsorships, with less financial support from the manufacturers.
Some examples of satellite teams on this year’s MotoGP grid include Gresini Racing, LCR Honda and Trackhouse Racing.
The bikes
MotoGP bikes are like none other. They are specially built from the ground up to be as fast as possible, thus they are called ‘prototypes’. While most teams currently use a V4 engine for their bikes, they do not have many restrictions, with important ones being a maximum of 1000cc for the bike’s engine, and a bore stroke of 81mm.
(CC is short for Cubic Capacity of the engine, and bore stroke refers to the size of the pistons they use in the engine)
Teams must declare the specification of engines they are using before the season begins, and are not allowed to change this specification at all during the season.
In addition to this, teams are restricted to a maximum of seven engines per season, taking into account riders swapping out their engines to ensure maximum reliability and performance. Both riders part of a team are required to use the same specification of engine, in order to prevent one rider of a team from having any unfair advantages.
The minimum weight limit in MotoGP is 157 kg, excluding the rider. If it is found to be below this weight limit during scrutineering sessions, the consequence is disqualification.
Furthermore, teams like using as many aerodynamic parts on their bikes, as it reduces the amount of mechanical grip needed from the tyres. But this is limited, and they are not allowed to use movable aero devices (e.g. DRS in Formula One).
MotoGP limits the amount of aero packages added to bikes per season to just one.In addition, the electronics used are supplied by MotoGP and the same for every team.
Tyres
Like other series such as Formula One and Formula E, MotoGP has an official tyre supplier - Michelin.
Although, the working of the MotoGP tyres is not like F1. Michelin often prepare a wide array of tyre compounds (much more than the five slick tyres and two wet compounds F1 uses) before the season begins. This is done keeping in mind the varying demands of circuits on the MotoGP calendar.
For instance, the demands on the tyres at a hotter venue like Qatar will be very different to the demands at Silverstone. As such, different tyre specifications are used.
So, different tyre compounds will naturally perform better at certain circuits. Before a race weekend begins, teams choose their allocation from 22 slick compounds, 10 for the front and 12 on the rears.
Riders will choose their front tyre from three types, hard, medium and soft. For the rear, the choice is between the hard and the softs only. If they choose the harder compound, they are limited to five sets, and for the softs, the allocation grows to seven sets.
A typical MotoGP Calendar
In MotoGP, the calendar is divided into 22 GP race weekends which take place across 19 countries. There are also five separate testing events before the main season, and seven in-season tests throughout the season at several host venues; these events are not just for MotoGP.
Some of them such as the Spanish, French and Czech Republic tests are for MotoGP’s feeder series Moto2 and Moto3 as well. These series are also governed by the same organisation, Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), the apex governing body for motorcycle racing across the world.
Race weekends
There are two practice sessions on Friday, the second of these sessions playing a major role for the rest of the weekend. If you finish in the top ten in the second practice session, you go straight to the second qualifying session, while those lower down progress to Q1.
Saturday begins with FP2, followed by qualifying and the sprint race. In Q1, the two fastest riders go through to Q2. The grid for the sprint and main races is then formed by the top 12 from Q2 and the rest from Q1.
Sunday plays host to the race, which keeps the same starting grid as the sprint race. Sprint races are half the race distance and less points available, allocated as follows:
Position | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th |
Points | 12 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
This is the points breakdown for the main race:
Position | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | 11th | 12th | 13th | 14th | 15th |
Points | 25 | 20 | 16 | 13 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
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