When Method 1’s stateside overlords Liberty Media acquired a majority stake in MotoGP final yr, at the price of a mere £3.6billion, the blueprint for progress on the planet’s premier bike class was not a carefully guarded secret. Trendy-day F1 is the competitors each sport worldwide is, to a big extent, trying to replicate. Because the saying goes: imitation is the sincerest type of flattery.
And but, past your two-wheeled petrolhead hardcores, cut-through is hard. Apart from Spain’s defending champion Marc Marquez, how most of the 2026 grid have you ever heard of? Do names like present championship chief Jorge Martin ring a bell? Within the UK, the case for notoriety just isn’t aided by the shortage of a single British driver on the grid, 50 years because the final British champion in Barry Sheene. Undoubtedly, luring star names is on the forefront of the expansion drive.
Commercial
Enter Guenther Steiner: the previous Haas staff boss, well-known for his expletive-laden rants and the unlikely star of the Drive to Survive phenomenon which launched F1 into the general public mainstream.
Guenther Steiner is a staff proprietor and CEO in MotoGP (Getty)
Two-and-a-half years on from leaving the world of F1 (a minimum of as a staff principal; he’s nonetheless an everyday on punditry duties for Australian and German TV networks), Steiner has shifted his motorsport compass considerably. Now, he’s the CEO and proprietor of the Crimson Bull KTM Tech 3 outfit in MotoGP. And forward of this weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone – recent off a two-year contract extension introduced on Thursday – the favored Italian-American is relishing a brand new problem and a brand new paddock.
“I feel MotoGP is like F1 was like 20 years in the past,” Steiner says, not discarding the mid-2000s period of Michael Schumacher dominating on monitor and Bernie Ecclestone off-track however, reasonably, an inference in the direction of the expansion of the game within the twenty years since that’s incontestable.
Commercial
“It is a sport which is rising, everybody needs to develop. If I will help to try this, I am very happy to try this. The potential of MotoGP is immense. As a sport, you possibly can hold the prices a lot decrease as a result of the bike is smaller. I understand how complicated an F1 automotive is in comparison with a motorbike.
“And the game itself? It truly is one thing once they go facet by facet. It is wonderful. MotoGP doesn’t want assist in the racing. The racing is sweet – go away it alone.”
Was the latter comment the smallest of digs at Method 1? Possibly sure, perhaps no. Nonetheless, any seasoned observer of the 500cc bike collection will know that the highlights package deal for many races accommodates no scarcity of hard-hitting motion, brave overtakes and – as seen in Barcelona in Might with Marquez’s youthful brother, Alex – dramatic crashes.
MotoGP’s British Grand Prix takes place at Silverstone this weekend (Getty)
This weekend’s Silverstone occasion occupies an intriguing spot on the sporting calendar. Shifted from a late-Might date final yr, the race takes place on a weekend with a minimal quantity of top-level sport all through the nation. On-site, Silverstone executives predict their greatest crowd (across the 50,000 mark) since Valentino Rossi’s ultimate yr in 2021.
Commercial
But whereas die-hard followers will scoff at comparisons, the scope for enlargement is clear. A month in the past, Silverstone attracted a world-record 550,000 followers to 4 days of motion over the F1 weekend. The shortage of a free-to-air deal this weekend, with protection solely on TNT Sports activities, looks like a missed alternative too.
“It’s extremely tough [to compare it to F1],” Steiner insists. “Is it higher or worse? It is simply completely different.
“MotoGP would not must look precisely like what F1 is; they will write their very own story. You should not have to repeat and paste the racing or the business alternatives. F1 was massive below Bernie [Ecclestone] however below Liberty, they gave it one other spike. They will do the identical now with MotoGP.
Barry Sheene was Britain’s final MotoGP champion 50 years in the past (Getty)
“Not everybody will be F1, which is across the second greatest worldwide sport now behind soccer. However… it may be very massive.”
Commercial
The room for growth is clear: not simply the UK, however the USA (the place there’s at present only one race, on the Circuit of the Americas in Austin) and bike-mad India are two large progress markets. Sixteen of the 22 full-time riders are from both Spain or Italy. Regardless, for the second yr operating, MotoGP can have a record-breaking calendar at 22 races, criss-crossing 5 completely different continents.
For the long run? Carving the riders into front-of-the-camera personalities, with elevated advertising and media alternatives, is a should. Deep-rooted rivalries between riders and staff bosses would assist too, in an ecosystem which is usually affable and heat. A fly-on-the-wall collection to depict all this, à la Drive to Survive, looks like a no brainer down the road.
But 100 years to the day because the first-ever British Grand Prix was held at Brooklands, the game which works by the mantra “half the wheels, twice the balls” has an actual alternative to broaden and speed up. The uncooked substances are there: daredevils risking all of it for sporting theatre and glory. And as soon as the eyeballs watch, they might not be in a position to withstand wanting away.
