Gulf clash between MotoGP and F1 may be no accident in Liberty future

It’s easy to lose all awareness of the outside world when one is in the thick of covering a MotoGP weekend. But not even fundamentalist motorcycle people, who wouldn’t be seen dead in a car paddock, could pretend to not know that Formula 1 was running its circus roughly 400 kilometres from the Qatar Grand Prix.

Gone are the days when MotoGP and F1 were unlikely to clash, or at least wouldn’t clash in the same time zone. Both series seem to reflect humanity rather well with their heartfelt belief that growth is the ultimate measure of goodness in all things (apart from grid sizes, it appears), which means we’re saddled with two unhealthily swollen calendars. And there are only so many weekends in the year.

It was nonetheless interesting to see the two series so geographically close to each other, each trying to impress with an ostentatious display under the lights. It must be said that an idea’s supposed originality or uniqueness doesn’t resonate so well when someone else just across a short stretch of Persian Gulf is doing the same thing.

I’m wondering whether sport under the lights is really anything to shout about in 2025, as these desert night races have been going for a long time now. Floodlit cricket has existed since the 1970s. International rugby under the lights is par for the course these days. Crikey, even six-a-side football next to the A3 takes place at night.

If you really want to appear innovative in a world where we’re supposed to be thinking about our energy use, maybe racing under the natural daylight of the sun and not making a scene about it could be a thought.  

For the fan of both two wheels and four, though, Sunday was definitely a prime-time treat. The championships had been smart (or lucky) enough to at least stagger their start times by two hours, so one could sit down to the F1 race, open the door for the pizza person during the podium ceremony and be back on one’s sofa by the time Marc Marquez – this time without disappearing for a jog down the pitlane – led MotoGP away on its warm-up lap.

While the juxtaposition was all very pleasant for those sitting in Europe, what about the local fans that were keen to attend both? Even those with private helicopters would surely have found it a little too tight to make it work on race day. These races being on the same weekend forced broad-minded local motorsport fans to make a choice.

But both Sakhir and Losail adopt a main-grandstand-or-nothing approach to on-site spectators, who have never really been a major consideration in these countries relatively new to motorsport. Last weekend’s clash also underlined just how little importance the turnout at the circuit really holds for the people who make these decisions. Presumably that whole prime-time TV situation is what really gets the suits salivating.

While the Qatar/Bahrain squeeze this year was probably just the result of a combination of circumstances, including the Ramadan factor, could it be something Liberty Media might look to deliberately replicate if and when it has control of both series?

Could opportunities for us to cast a beady eye over both championships in close proximity come along more often in the future?

Sure, there’s a logic in letting each championship get its time in the sun rather than stealing the other’s headlines, clicks and impressions on the same day. But if the same people own both, what if both series can cross-pollinate and leverage each other?

While safety considerations (if nothing else) make the idea of F1 and MotoGP sharing the same bill fantasy for the moment, Liberty must have noted Sunday evening’s phenomenon with interest. This kind of neighbourly scheduling and friendly television offering could be engineered! It’s not hard to imagine a similar package, inevitably involving the word ‘super’, in a world where Liberty has a ‘bouquet of motorsport products’ in its ‘portfolio’.

Fast forward to a streaming-only future when television stations are gone and the six o’clock news is no longer a consideration. A red flag or delay in the first race might not even be a big problem. Start times could have some flexibility built in to avoid overlaps.

F1 owner Liberty Media is also in the process of claiming a majority stake in MotoGP

Photo by: Tech3 Racing

At the risk of opening the hatch to a rabbit hole, where else could Liberty try this? Well, to state the obvious, the European summer offers enough daylight on a Sunday afternoon for both series to do its thing. COTA and Miami also offer a nice stagger to their time zones that would still make sense for a European audience. The new MotoGP race in Brazil might pair up well with Texas or Mexico.

With its Las Vegas F1 project, Liberty has also shown that it is not hung up on Sundays at all. It might consider using more weekends more creatively. Dare we hope that it brings back the brutally abolished tradition that was the Saturday MotoGP race at Assen?

Back to the Persian Gulf, though. When F1 and MotoGP are physically and temporally so close, especially on circuits and in conditions that are broadly similar, the temptation to compare the racing cannot be resisted. Liberty might be aware of this too. That was particularly true given the snooze that had been the Japanese Grand Prix the previous weekend. F1 came to Bahrain hoping it could put on a better show in terms of racing. Fireworks and floodlights can’t mask dull sporting action for 57 laps.

MotoGP, on the other hand, had been reasonably entertaining considering Marquez had won almost everything. Yes, it is ridiculous that the two-wheelers also have a dirty air effect to worry about, but the preceding race in Austin had nonetheless featured memorable dicing for the lead early in the sprint and good battles down the field in the grand prix.

How did Bahrain and Qatar compare on Sunday, then? There will be as many opinions as there are stars in the sky, but here’s mine: MotoGP had the edge.

Yes, the F1 race in Bahrain was (thankfully) a lot better than Suzuka had been. There was action aplenty in the top six but not for the lead as such. Engineered though the race in Qatar may have been by Marquez, the bikes offered three different leaders from three different teams as well as two different manufacturers. And the battles – genuine ones – a little further down the order are a given.

While comparing the two series is just a little bit of fun at this point in time, make no mistake that some powerful people will be doing just that as and when the Liberty MotoGP deal is final. Could opportunities for us to cast a beady eye over both championships in close proximity come along more often in the future?

Will Liberty host race weekends for both championships more often in the future?

Photo by: Peter Fox – Getty Images