SIC58 BOSS PAOLO SIMONCELLI SAYS MOTO2 AND MOTO3 ARE LOSING VISIBILITY

Sic58 team owner Paolo Simoncelli has warned that Moto2 and Moto3 are being pushed further into the background, arguing that the sport risks erasing key parts of its own history even as the racing in the support classes continues to deliver drama.

Writing in a blog on the Sic58 squad’s website, Simoncelli said the problem is not the quality of the action, but the way Moto2 and Moto3 are being presented to fans. He described the categories as “increasingly invisible,” pointing to what he sees as reduced attention, less space on social media, and a lack of storytelling compared with MotoGP.

Simoncelli’s message was framed around the idea that Moto2 and Moto3 titles and the riders who win them still matter. He questioned what remains of the sport’s past if value is steadily taken away from those championships and categories. “First, you take away space from smaller categories, then you take away value from their champions…if you keep taking away, you risk losing important pieces of history,” he wrote.

He also argued that the sport’s future audience is being misunderstood. Simoncelli said MotoGP alone cannot realistically target the scale of Formula 1, especially when the wider weekend experience is being narrowed. “I ask myself how we can even think about reaching Formula 1 numbers, showing the audience only a 40-minute MotoGP race,” he said, adding that people attend for “motorcycling” and for the full range of weekend stories, riders, and battles—often those not at the very top of the early standings.

A specific example from a recent Moto3 weekend at Aragon underlined his criticism of coverage. Simoncelli claimed that despite close racing and “epic battles” involving riders several seconds behind the lead group, the Moto3 TV director showed only the first four riders. He said the result was that viewers missed what he described as the most exciting parts of the race.

Beyond media coverage, Simoncelli also took aim at how the paddock is being structured. He suggested that future redevelopment plans could further isolate Moto2 and Moto3 teams from the rest of the paddock, using a stark analogy: “Like the first and third class on the Titanic.” He added that the sport “only hope[s] that someone remembers that, in the end, on the Titanic, they all went down,” as he warned against treating the support classes as if they were separate.

While Simoncelli acknowledged that MotoGP champions carry a different weight, he insisted that Moto2 and Moto3 riders still take real risks. He stressed that these are not lower-stakes races just because they sit beneath the premier class. “Sometimes we forget one thing: these are lower categories, yes, but that does not mean they take less risk on track,” he wrote. He pointed out that riders at that age are often pushing beyond the limit, on fast bikes with little room for error, and that the asphalt is the same for everyone when they brake and enter corners.

Finally, Simoncelli suggested that the solution could be partly financial, arguing that more support would help Moto2 and Moto3 teams grow and reach the level of MotoGP. “Maybe a little more financial support would be enough to allow Moto2 and Moto3 teams, to grow and reach the level of MotoGP,” he said, tying the idea of better conditions directly to delivering a stronger spectacle.

Overall, Simoncelli’s stance is that Moto2 and Moto3 are producing racing worth watching, but that the sport’s presentation—through coverage choices, attention allocation, and paddock treatment—threatens to reduce their visibility and, with it, their place in MotoGP’s broader story.