MotoGP bikes and riders deserve better than Balaton

MotoGP’s awesome premier-class motorcycles averaged 92.6mph during Sunday’s 26-lap Hungarian Grand Prix at Balaton Park.

That’s slower than a MotoGP bike goes in first gear.

It’s also slower than Moto3 bikes average around Assen, Aragon, Barcelona, Brno, Buriram, Jerez, Losail, Mandalika, Mugello Red Bull Ring, Phillip Island, Sachsenring, Sepang, Silverstone and Termas de Rio Hondo.

Does this matter? Of course it matters.

Racing is about speed. That is literally the whole point.

MotoGP is supposed to be about watching riders dancing on the edge of the precipice, controlling their motorcycles at speeds that make everyday people gasp in awe. It’s about engineers creating machinery that out-performs every motorcycle on the planet, through crazy horsepower, crazy grip and crazy speeds.

The championship is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorcycle performance, so to me it’s something of an insult to ask MotoGP’s gladiators and their engineers to go to work at a go-kart track. Balaton Park is not worthy of MotoGP bikes and their riders.

Taking MotoGP bikes and riders to Balaton is like moving the Isle of Man TT to the Tesco car park in Douglas.

“Faster. Forward. Fearless,” goes MotoGP’s new marketing slogan.

Faster? Certainly not at Balaton. Forward? Is this new circuit good for MotoGP? Will it attract more people to the championship? I don’t think so.

So why has MotoGP signed a long-term contract with HUMDA (the government-financed Hungarian Mobility Development Agency) to stage GPs at Balaton Park, which is owned by opaque companies registered in Belize?

Over the years it seems to me that Dorna have always prioritised making a quick buck over MotoGP’s long-term growth.

The Circuit of Wales… did it really make sense to move the British GP to deepest Wales?

The Kymi Ring? Would a race in Finland be good for the championship?

Termas? Why go to a circuit 700 miles from Argentina’s centre of population?

Mandalika? Why go to a circuit 800 miles from Indonesia’s centre of population?

In my opinion, none of these venues make any sense, if you prioritise growing the championship – to the benefit of fans and everyone in the paddock – over signing sweet contracts.

The fact is that good racetracks make good racing, which is better for everyone in the championship. Conversely, poor layouts create boring racing, which makes fans turn off their televisions, which is worse for everyone in the championship.

This is what I hope Liberty will bring to MotoGP – a longer-term vision, with a more intelligent attitude towards creating a better quality of racing that will attract more people to races and encourage more to turn on their TVs.

If any Liberty bosses watched the weekend’s action from Balaton, I wonder what they made of it, because it didn’t look like the pinnacle of motorcycle racing to me.

Not only is Balaton ridiculously slow – with around half the corners taken in first gear – it’s also not particularly safe.

Before the paddock arrived in Hungary last week there were already concerns about the dead-stop chicanes creating dangerous situations – a rider crashes in the first part, then the fallen rider and bike return to the track in the second part. That’s exactly what happened to Enea Bastianini on Sunday – a real lap-of-the-gods situation, because we all know there are few more perilous moments than when a fallen rider ends up on a busy part of the circuit. So why is MotoGP introducing new circuits to the championship when we know this is going to happen?

And the first two corners, it’s almost like they were designed to cause pile-ups. There were two in four races over the weekend – in the MotoGP sprint and the Moto2 race. Same in World Superbike a few weeks before.

Frankly, I find this all so depressing. MotoGP can and must do better.

Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola was the only paddock person who spoke up, calling the circuit “Mickey Mouse”, meaning, “Too easy, small or unimportant to be taken seriously.”

Why didn’t the riders complain? First, because they’re told not to. Second, because hating a layout most likely won’t make you fast around that layout. And, anyway, they all train around go-kart tracks, so they’re used to this kind of circuit.

“In the end, the championship needs different kinds of tracks,” said Marc Márquez, with his diplomacy voice turned up to 11.

And why should he care about anything, he’s currently unbeatable everywhere, from magnificent Mugello to dinky little Balaton Park.

Balaton was Márquez’s seventh 100% score – sprint victory and grand prix victory – from the last seven weekends. The 32-year-old Spaniard has scored 455 points so far, so if he continues at his current rate he will exceed Jorge Martin‘s 2024 points total at the next two races and secure the title at Misano three weekends from now. He went to Balaton 142 points in front of brother Alex and left 175 points ahead. If he does that again at Barcelona and Misano, he will be uncatchable.

Some people say the six-time MotoGP king is in the form of his life. I’m not so sure. I think he’s back to where he was before he broke his right arm, despite still suffering from the injury. The difference now is that he has more competitive machinery.