MOTOGP RIDERS DISAGREE OVER THE COST OF BACK-TO-BACK RACES

MotoGP riders are divided over whether the championship’s growing number of back-to-back race weekends puts pressure on injured competitors to return before they are ready. The schedule helps fit a long season into the calendar, but riders say it can also leave little time to recover.

Back-to-back events have long featured in MotoGP, particularly on overseas tours. In 2026, however, paired races are common across Europe as well as in the Americas and Asia. The calendar includes France followed by Catalunya, Italy and Hungary, Czechia and the Netherlands, San Marino and Austria, and Portugal and Valencia. Qatar’s rescheduling also created a three-race run with Australia and Malaysia.

The concern is especially sharp when an injury occurs early in a sequence. Jorge Martin, a title contender, rode a reduced schedule on Friday in Malaysia after being hurt in Australia the previous week. Raul Fernandez, meanwhile, withdrew from the Malaysian Grand Prix with a broken finger sustained in Indonesia.

Fabio Di Giannantonio agreed that the format can encourage riders to compete while not fully fit. “At the end it’s true,” he said, noting that the races are grouped for logistical and calendar reasons. Maintaining fitness across the season is becoming harder, he added, and “sometimes it’s also a bit dangerous.”

Fernandez also acknowledged the recovery problem, pointing to his injured finger: “I cannot recover as I want.” But he argued that back-to-backs are needed to make the lengthy championship workable. Without them, he said, riders would lose the free time they need. “We are human and we deserve to have some, let’s say, holidays, but it’s not really ‘holidays’.”

Johann Zarco framed the choice as a practical one. “Try to put 22 races from March to November without doing any back-to-back – it’s impossible,” the LCR Honda rider said. Spreading the races across the entire year would not solve the problem, he added: “If we do that it means we never breathe, either.”

Francesco Bagnaia disagreed that the race format itself is the main issue. The two-time champion said medical decisions should be firmer when riders are injured. “If a rehabilitation needs two months, you need to wait two months,” he said, arguing that riders naturally push to return quickly. If medical checks show they are not ready, he believes the “unfit” designation must be respected.

The differing views point to a tension in MotoGP’s packed calendar: riders recognise that consecutive events help preserve breaks in the season, but injuries can make those same blocks particularly demanding. For Bagnaia, clearer medical limits—not removing back-to-backs—are the answer.