The safety of motorcycle racing, especially in categories like Moto3 with its technically sophisticated and ambitious riders who want to make a difference, has been the subject of intense discussion in recent months. Because this year there have already been three deaths on the track – Jason Dupasquier in the Moto3 World Championship, Hugo Millán in the European Talent Cup and Dean Berta Viñales in the Supersport 300 World Championship.
The reigning MotoGP world champion Joan Mir stated after the Americas GP – which resulted in a controversial accident in the Moto3 race – that the rules should define a minimum number of podiums in order to advance in a category:
- There is a lot of money in a team, a lot of sponsors, and they certainly want the best for the teams. But sometimes team managers are a little optimistic. Maybe you need a minimum of podium places to get from one category to another. I think that helps in terms of safety. We have also seen that the danger is not in the bigger categories but in the lower categories because they are all together, they fight, they want to do crazy maneuvers to make the difference when they don’t have speed. That’s why there are a lot of accidents – they don’t show anything in practice, but they show up in the race. And with the extremely high adrenaline, Moto3 is like that.
From my point of view, such a minimum of podium places would be a good mechanism to ensure safety to a certain extent: “It is logical for a world champion to move up into the other category, but I disagree because it might happen . ” In Moto3, one rider wins, but another is better prepared. I think a minimum of podium places is good for safety. ‘