MotoGP, Barcelona: Marc Marquez, the home garden to return to victory

In the first 5 grands prix of this MotoGP season, the average gap between the winner and the runner-up was less than a second: 951 thousandths. From Friday we will race in Barcelona. It’s been happening for 33 consecutive years – only Assen (71) and Jerez (39) have lived longer – and on the Montmelò circuit they’re already betting on the success of Marquez. The Catalan hasn’t won since October 2021 (Misano), enough is enough: he prepares the party in his home garden, but he will have to deal with Pecco’s desire for revenge and the ambition of Martinator, now firmly at the top of the ranking. Beware of Viñales: don’t forget that last year the Aprilia with Espargaro he took everything, even the sprint. In 2023, the appointment arrived halfway through the championship: Bagnaia was the victim of a dramatic accident immediately after the start – overwhelmed by Binder’s KTM – which risked making him lose the title. That day Bastianini also suffered a bad fall.

«Idols», filming of the motorcycle series begins

The 10 episodes of “Drive to survive”, a documentary television series created by Netflix to tell the background and behind the scenes of Formula 1, relaunched the championship. The Americans at Liberty Media, who have now also got their hands on MotoGP, want to replicate the project: the first filming of «Idols», a Warner film made with the collaboration of Dorna, begins right on the asphalt and in the Catalan paddock. In the meantime, again on the orders of the new US owners, a large VIP area was built adjacent to the paddock.

Barcelona, ​​what a ‘break away’: pay attention to the first corner

According to Brembo technicians, who work closely with all the riders in the world championship, the Barcelona track (4.66 km long) falls into the “highly demanding” braking category. On an ideal scale of 1 to 6, it deserved a difficulty index of 5 due to 10 braking sections, for a total of 32 seconds per lap of use of the brakes. Five of these curves involve braking of at least 3 seconds and braking distances of more than 130 metres. The hardest for the braking system is the first: the MotoGP bikes go from 342 to 103 km/h in 5.2 seconds, in which they travel 292 meters while the temperature of the carbon discs reaches 620 degrees centigrade.

TV times: Saturday sprint at 3pm, Sunday GP at 2pm

The weekend in Barcelona can be seen live on Sky (and streaming on Now), with TV8 broadcasting the qualifications and the sprint on Saturday afternoon free-to-air. It starts on Friday at 9am with the first free practice session of Moto3, followed by Moto2 (9.50am) and MotoGP (10.45am). In the afternoon, Practice 1 for Moto3 (1.15pm) and Moto2 (2.05pm), then the MotoGP Practice (3pm), an hour which will serve to indicate the best 10 riders promoted directly to Q2 the following morning. Saturday, Moto3 Practice 2 (8.40), then Moto2 (9.25), then the second MotoGP Free Practice (10.10), followed doubtlessly later (10.50 by qualifying. At 12.50 it’s the turn of Moto3 qualifying, Moto2 at 1.45pm. The MotoGP sprint race starts at 3pm: the short warm-up of the MotoGP runs over 12 laps (10 minutes, from 9.40am), then the races: first the 18 laps of the Moto3 (11am) , then the 21st of Moto2 (12.15), finally the 24th of MotoGP which, as tradition, will start at 2pm.