No less than 56 crashes were seen at the MotoGP opening in Portugal.
Marc Márquez collided with two riders before crashing at the Portuguese GP. PDO
The MotoGP series wanted more excitement for the race weekends.
That’s why for this season the program of every GP Saturday was changed so that a sprint race that was about half the length of the actual GP was included.
Portugal’s opening round is now behind us, and the series is under serious consideration. With the sprint races, serious injuries have increased significantly, and at this rate, future races may suffer from a driver shortage.
The season started last weekend at the Portimão motor track, where the Ducati rider Pecco Bagnaia took first prize in the main competition. But at the same time as the Italian was enjoying his GP victory, no less than four colleagues were lying injured in the hospital.
It’s just that with the sprint came a lot more aggressive laps, man-on-man battles and crashes. Actually, there were significantly more crashes than on normal GP weekends.
As many as 56 of them were recorded.
Four a side
At the same time, he grabbed the pole position Marc Marquez, Enea Bastianini, Miguel Oliveira and already fell badly in training Pol Espargaro was rushed to the hospital.
The most famous of them is, of course, eight-time world champion Márquez, who crashed in Sunday’s main race by Jorge Martín and with Oliveira.
The story continues after the picture
Pol Espargaró’s exit scared the MotoGP spectators badly. PDO
Espargaró is not expected back on the racing bike for a long time.
– He has a long rehabilitation process ahead of him. The most important thing is that it succeeds. Pol himself would like to be able to drive as soon as tomorrow, but unfortunately it won’t work out, big brother Aleix Espargaro said to the Crash site.
The older Espargaró is also an active driver and GP winner. He could not accept how the sport’s superstar Márquez got away with his collisions without a suspension.
It is clear that in the future the drivers must have safer race events.
– We now drive much harder in corners thanks to the improved aerodynamics. Because of that, the speed rises to over 300 even on short straights, which makes the safety areas far too small, Espargaró explained.
– Because of the sprint races, we have far too many injuries.
The next race will be held next weekend in Argentina. The four injured in Portugal will not be able to participate, and we are already afraid of what will happen if the roof continues at the same pace in the future.
– If this continues like this, from the end of the season we will no longer have drivers on the starting line, who stopped in Portugal Jorge Martín said.