MotoGP has seen one too many crashes during this year’s Saturday morning sessions (Silverstone saw four crashes) so the Grand Prix Commission has decided to make amends by reinstating Friday morning practice, starting this season.
Friday morning practice sessions were dropped in 2009 to increase engine life and reduce costs in MotoGP, but esentially the problem was that teams were finding themselves with less time to set up the bikes, and riders heading into the Saturday morning hour practice had cooler and often damp tracks to contend with and no previous day information.
This turned the session into a rush match, trying to adjust the bike for those specific conditions, while trying refine set-ups for qualifying and Sunday’s race that take place on much warmer asphalt conditions.
Dorna was willing to change the weekend’s format at Assen, but most circuit organizers have already special events in place for Friday morning, so the new rule will probably be applied starting from the Aragon GP in September.
We believe that the three sessions will be shortened to 45 minutes each, while qualifying and warm-up will remain the same.