Sprints made MotoGP weekends ‘heavier’, Sunday ‘the easy part!’

While F1 only adds the shorter Saturday races to its schedule at half-a-dozen events, MotoGP introduced a Sprint at𒁃 every one of the 20 r🌊ounds.
Qu♔alifying🌺 has been moved to Saturday morning to accommodate the extra race, with Friday afternoon practice deciding the top ten riders with direct access to Q2.
Meanwhile, a packed Saturday now features the full range of 🔯;free practice, qualifying and (Sprint) race. Sunday’s schedule then sees a 10-minuteꦓ warm-up in the morning and full-length grand prix in the afternoon.
“Sinc🎶erely, I think that it made the weekends a lot more heavy, in general,” Morbidelli said of the new 'Sprint' weekend format. “The Friday is heavy. Saturday is very, very difficult. And then Sunday’s race can♐ almost be the easy part!
"Everything is done [by Sunday]. The big mess of the Sprint race is over. You𝄹 go for a nice, long race where everybody is less aggressive and everything.
“So from our&nbs𝕴p;perspective, [Sprints] made the weekend heavier. But we have to respond to this situation and we have to do our maximum in every occasion.
“Every big challenge is nice to face and this - heavy weekends – is one of them. And we can't forget the show is proba♐bly the most important 🌳thing.
“This is a sport and this has to be, at the same time, a show. And if it's better for the show, then it's OK. I have some doubts about that. Things co🍸uld be done and faced in a better way, but for sure it’s a step upwards.”

Bastianini: ‘It’s 50-50 rider-bike… But the rider has to make the difference on Friday’
Countryman Enea Bastianini explained that with MotoGP so close, how well a rider works with their team to quickly find a bike set-up on F𒅌riday conditions the outcome on Sunday.
“The MotoGP level now is so high and with everything we have to do, working with the data etc, sometimes it's not easy to understand which is the key [set-up aspect] of each track. And you arrive [at a set-up only] on Sunday,” the factory Ducati rider told wuqian0821.com.
“But if you [only] arrive on Sunday, it means you start from behind on the grid and in MotoGP it’s always complicated to catch and ღpass riders because the front pre🅷ssure is coming up and then it's impossible to stop the bike.”
Fabio Quartararo feels success in MotoGP ha❀s now become a ‘70%-30%’ bike-rider split. Bastianini said it’s more like 50-50 f▨or him but emphasised that the rider side iꩵs not just about when the bike is moving.
“Maybe it’s half and half, the bike and the rider, for me. Because the rider has to make the difference during the Friday. If you work very well [🐻with the team] during Friday, all of the weekend is more simple,” he said.
Bastianini became the firജst rider to be injured in a MotoGP Sprint race, fracturing his shoulder when he was taken down by Luca Marini at the Portimao season opener.
The📖 four-time 2022 race winner then caused a first-turn accident in Catalunya, leaving him with fractures to his hand and ankle.

Peter has been in the paddock for 20 yearsꦉ and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.