There was not a single MotoGP♐ grand prix with all 22 full-time riders racing at the same time in the entirety of last season.

The addition💧 of a sprint race at every round was cited as a key reason for the injury toll.

Fifteen out of 22 riders had an injury at some stage of last year, and nine riders missed atꦅ least one race asꦦ a result.

🎉This year already, Franco Morbidelli crashed in a Portimao test and was knocked unconscious and hospitalised so missed the Sepang test, and will miss the Qatar test. Raul Ferna♏ndez’s crash on the first day of the Sepang test ruled him out of the second and third.

Whꦏile the ꦫpower and aerodynamics of the bikes is an obvious factor, riders themselves blame the increased pressure and intensity of the additional sprint race.

But, sprint races are here to stay in 2024.

“Obviously, m🤡ore races means more chance of injury,” Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta told Marca.

“But the sport has to have an evolution.

“We fight not only with other sports, we fight with other ♎forms of entertainment and we have to look to have 𓄧the necessary audience to be able to do that.”

KTM have notably named Pꦕol Espargaro as a reserve rider this season, demoting him from last season’s role as a full-time rider to make room for Pedro Acost🀅a at Tech3 GASGAS.

That means KTM have Espargaro and test rider Dani Pedr൲osa within their ranks, on top of their four full-time riders.

Ezpeleta was asked if teams w♚ill begin widely employing experienced reserve riders to combat possible injury absences.

“I don't know if they have understood it or not, but that is not a ☂choice that I can give them,” he said.

“They have to decide it.

“If I were a factory, I would have a reserve🐼 rid🦩er.

“Now the only one that is good at that, at one level, is KTM, w🅰hich has Pol and Dani.”

Talk about the riders forming their ow🦂n union, separate toꦕ the Safety Commission, is yet to become formalised.

“It seems very good to me, I don't ha📖ve any p♑roblems,” Ezpeleta said.

“What I understood was to name a person when they h൲꧙ad something to say in general.

“They, during🌱 the weekend, are racing and that's what they have 𒈔to worry about.

“So someone comes and tells us: 'Hey, we think this is this or we thinꦆk something else.'

“But I believ💫e that there is no sport that has the relationship with athletes like we do.

“There is n🐽o other sport that, in the mid🏅dle of events, meets with all the riders who want to tell us what they think.

🌃“At first it was about security and now it is about many things.”