MotoGP “not ruling out” joint F1 event under Liberty ownership
Dorna sporting director Carlos Ezpeleta says it is “not ruling out” a joint MotoGP and Formula 1 event under Liberty Media’s ownership, but admits it’s “a complicated project”.
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
On Monday 1 April, Liberty announced it had acquired 86% ownership of Dorna Sports and MotoGP as part of a deal valued at €4.2 billion.
With both F1 and MotoGP now under Liberty’s umbrella, talks of a potential joint race weekend for the two series has surfaced again.
In an exclusive first interview with Ezpeleta following Monday’s announcement, with Motorsport.com’s Spanish MotoGP podcast Por Orejas, the executive says a joint event is not out of the question but isn’t something being considered in the short term.
"Well, it's something that at the moment, for obvious reasons, is not in the immediate plans and it's not something that we are working on, but it's not something that we are ruling out for the medium-term future either,” Ezpeleta said.
“But having said that, the reality is that it makes limited sense, because at the end of the day we have some events with our own fan base, which is a different fan base in most places to the Formula 1 fan base.
“They sell, they sell out in many circuits and so do we, so getting all of us together in the same event, in the same weekend, has difficulties and the return on investment is not very clear today.
“Then you also have problems with the different sponsors, the TV cameras, so it is a project, or it would be a rather complicated project, let's say.
“Then again, there are a number of circuits that can run both [series], but there are not so many, so it is a project that is not discarded, but we are not working on it either.”
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Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
The future of World Superbikes under the new Liberty deal is unclear at this stage, but for the time being Ezpeleta says there is no plans for MotoGP and the production-based series to host any shared events.
“It's something that has been talked about for a long time and the reality, being very direct, I do not know the benefit,” he added.
“Clearly it would make exposure to Superbike more relevant, MotoGP I think would have little to do there.
“There is quite an important crossover of fans and I don't know if the people who go to Montmelo for Superbikes… I think they also go to MotoGP.
“It doesn't make a lot of sense with both together because you are not going to attract more people and you have to pay for both things, Superbike and MotoGP, so it doesn't make much sense at the moment.”
Additional reporting by Oriol Puigdemont and German Garcia Casanova
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