Last week during International Women’s Day, my colleague Tammy Gorali – the first female commentator ever in the MotoGP paddock, I should point out – tweeted some timely statistics about female attendance at MotoGP races.
In short, here tweets showed that over the past four years, the number of female spectators has declined an astonishing 19%. That’s no small drop, and the timeliness of that revelation should be noted.
On its face, this tweet showed that MotoGP was seemingly hemorrhaging female fans. But, the reality isn’t as clearcut, and this is also where things get weird.
Intrigued by Gorali’s info, I dug into the numbers a bit further to see what was behind this startling statistic. What I found was that if you pulled the scope back further by just one more year, then over the past five years female attendance at MotoGP races has actually increased by 33%.
If your brain is hurting right now, that’s ok, but it is difficult to understand how the number of women attending MotoGP races declined by 19% over the past four years, but increased somehow also increased 33% over the last five?
Keep on reading, and I will try and shed some light on this curious case of female MotoGP attendance.
It is terribly fashionable in some circles to regard Dorna as a blight on the face of motorcycle racing. Their alleged crimes are both heinous and manifold. They have dumbed down the sport by exerting an ever tighter grip over the technical regulations.
They killed off the two-strokes in favor of four-strokes. They have aggressively pursued copyright and trademark claims, at the cost of broadening the appeal of the sport. They have been relentless in their pursuit of financial gain over the spirit of the sport. They have meddled in the sport to favor one rider, or one nationality over the rest.
Most of these complaints are either baseless, or an expression of anger at how the sport has changed over the years. Some points are valid: the death of the 250cc two-strokes, however understandable from a financial point of view, was a tragedy, as a 250cc two-stroke was perhaps the most perfect expression of a racing motorcycle.
In the past, as I found myself on occasion, Dorna was slow to embrace change online, and wasted energy chasing down YouTube clips of MotoGP, rather than controlling them by providing them to fans in an easy-to-share way. (Fortunately for the fans, they have learned and bettered their ways in this regard.)
Yet it is hard to argue with results. This season, six factories – three Japanese, three European – will line up on the MotoGP grid. 23 riders from seven different countries will take the start, with a grand total of 31 world championship titles between them.
The bikes they will rider are extremely close in performance, with technical differences limited. For the past two years, riders from three different countries have won the three Grand Prix titles.
The MotoGP series has emerged from global financial crisis in rude health, despite some major challenges along the way.
The Repsol Honda team did not have a great deal of luck during their private test at Jerez. The test, scheduled for two days, was meant to help Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa make a final decision on which engine to use in their Honda RC213V for the rest of the season.
With engines due to be sealed at Qatar, the Jerez test was crucial. The tight nature of the Andalusian circuit brings out the worst in the characteristics of the Honda engine, so testing there would provide the best data on whether the new engine was an improvement or not.
The elements were far from cooperative, however. The first day of the scheduled two-day test was rained off, leaving Marquez and Pedrosa stuck in their garages. However, as they did not turn a wheel all day, it did not cost them a test day against their allowance of five days of private testing.
The weather was better for the second day of the test, though conditions were far from ideal during the morning. Marquez and Pedrosa got in a full day of testing, putting the 2017 bike through its paces.
The 2017 World Superbike calendar is close to being finalized. When it was announced at the combined WorldSBK/MotoGP test in November of last year, the calendar featured thirteen rounds of racing, only twelve of which had been confirmed.
The missing round, many present at the test felt, was a Jerez-shaped hole waiting to be filled. Now, we have learned, the penultimate round of World Superbikes will indeed take place at Jerez.
Episode 45 of the Paddock Pass Podcast begins the 2017 racing season, and tackles the pre-season tests for MotoGP and World Superbike, which were at the Sepang, Jerez, and Portimão circuits.
In this show, Steve English, and David Emmett take us through the happenings on and off the track at these events, and discuss who is looking ready for the 2017 season, and who still has some work left to do before the green flag waves.
To start things off, first we get David’s account of the MotoGP testing at Sepang, where we got a quasi-glimpse of what to expect from MotoGP’s new riders, as well as how teams are dealing with the new ban on winglets.
Next, the show turns to the World Superbike paddock, where Steve gets us up to speed on what happened at both pre-season tests on the Iberian Peninsula. With a bevy of riders coming into WorldSBK as well as some shuffling of machinery, there’s no shortage of topics in World Superbike as well.
With the long wait over the winter now over, we should be bringing you shows regularly once again. Stay tuned for our next episode, from the MotoGP test at Phillip Island.
As always, be sure to follow the Paddock Pass Podcast on Facebook, Twitter and subscribe to the show on iTunes and SoundCloud – we even have an RSS feed for you. If you like the show, we would really appreciate you giving it a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!
PJ Jacobsen will once again be the sole American representation in World Supersport this year. The New Yorker had his first taste of his MV Agusta F3 in the dry while at the Jerez test, and came away suitably impressed by the bike that has won eight races in the hands of Jules Cluzel in recent years.
The 23-year-old tested the bike in Jerez last year in what was seen as a shootout for the ride, but on a damp track he didn’t get a real feel for the bike.
“Today was my first day on the bike this year,” said Jacobsen. “I did half a day on the MV last November in Jerez, but it was half wet, half dry so today was good to get out there.”
“It was fully dry so I learned a lot and I’m quite happy with it. The bike is totally different to what I’ve ridden in the past, but the team works really well and they’ve impressed me.”
Far from sitting on its laurels after winning seven of the last eight World Superbike races of 2016, Ducati came out of the blocks swinging at Jerez with a busy testing program. As such, Chaz Davies and Marco Melandri had a host of upgraded parts in the Spanish sun.
Davies spent the majority of his time working on chassis development with Melandri focussing on the engine. Afterwards, the Welshman gave a revealing insight into the makeup of the mindset of one of the world’s top racers when at one of these pre-season tests.
After their return to World Superbike in 2016, Yamaha did not shy away from admitting that there is plenty of work to be done to turn the YZF-R1 into a front-runner.
That work was certainly being undertaken at this week’s Jerez test, with Michael van der Mark and Alex Lowes the busiest riders on track over the two days.
The pair completed a total of 283 laps of the Spanish circuit, and with a host of new parts on the bikes, it’s clear that the R1 should be more competitive in 2017.
The second and final day of testing at Jerez is complete for the World Superbike series, and though the names at the top are familiar, the order is a little less clear cut than it was yesterday.
Jonathan Rea is still fastest, the reigning world champion a tenth quicker than anyone else on track, and one of only two riders to drop into the 1’39s.
But behind the Kawasaki rider is not his teammate Tom Sykes, but Milwaukee Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori. The Italian posted an impressive time in the afternoon, jumping to finish between the two Kawasakis.
Tom Sykes ended the day in third, four tenths behind teammate Rea. Both Kawasaki men fell during the day, not the only riders to crash, as Althea BMW riders Jordi Torres (WSBK) and Marco Faccani (STK1000) also fell, the two BMW men injuring their shoulders in the fall.
Nicky Hayden and Stefan Bradl had their first experience of the all new for 2017 Honda CBR1000RR SP2 on the opening day of the Jerez test, and it was clear that there is still plenty of work to be done by the Ten Kate squad to get the bikes ready for the start of the season.
With the Phillip Island opener only four weeks away, the Dutch team faces a race against time to be up to speed for the start of the WorldSBK campaign. Both riders made it clear that it is very early days for the project, and as a result were unwilling to offer definitive opinions – though initial impressions were positive.