THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

I see Liberty are taking over your beloved MotoGP. I imagine you are delighted!!

I genuinely would have been happier if the fucking Saudis had bought it.

The initial noises from the announcement are a little bit reassuring. The current Spanish management remains in place unchanged, and they don't have any plans to change how the sport works like they did with F1. This is mainly because MotoGP isn't shit like F1 is so they don't have to.

In fact, it might even do some good if Liberty can put some pressure on the next tech regs that are coming in for 2027. MotoGP is weird in that the manufacturers decide what the technical regs are, and they can only be changed mid-rule cycle with unanimous consent. This is how we've ended up with winglets everywhere, ground effect and adjustable ride height that are making the racing more processional than it should be. The fans don't want it, the riders don't want it, and the teams don't want it - apart from Ducati because it's a big part of their competitive advantage. Hopefully Liberty can ensure that we get back towards less aero-driven bikes.

However, what I'm sure Liberty will do is make the promotion and image of the sport more artificial, superficial, tawdry and social media-driven, and probably introduce 'Ride To Survive'. Which means we're going to get more tribal fanboy dickheads watching the sport, which I thought we'd finally managed to get rid of when Valentino Rossi retired.

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It's Pete's train set, and we should all feel honoured to be granted the privilege of paying to play with it.

Thats interesting. Liberty for me are all about the 'show' and I fear that thats what will happen to MotoGP. I would expect the introduction of night races and other odd race times, pre race and post race nonsense and lots of gimmicks not actually related to the racing.

Well, we already have one night race in Qatar (same track as F1, it was built for MotoGP 20 years ago), which is normally the first race of the season and actually makes the race time more Euro-friendly. MotoGP is huge in south-east Asia, so I could see another night race out there because it puts it onto 'normal' time for Europe.

I think we'll get more races in the USA, too, which is a positive because bikes are huge out there but racing has really fallen by the wayside since the days of Kenny Roberts and Freddie Spencer. I'm going to Austin next week but the crowd size will likely be pretty low.

It's the gimmicks and promotion that I guess I'm most concerned about - but then on reflection, it's relatively easy for me to switch off from all that as I don't use any social media platforms. But the show in MotoGP is already very good, it just needs a tech-reg overhaul to get back to its best.

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It's Pete's train set, and we should all feel honoured to be granted the privilege of paying to play with it.

Hopefully it all works out for the better. Enjoy Austin!

Thanks mate. Second time I've been and it is a truly fantastic city. The place must be mobbed on F1 weekend!

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It's Pete's train set, and we should all feel honoured to be granted the privilege of paying to play with it.