MotoGP will substantially reshape its race weekend from 2027, adding Sprint qualifying on Friday, changing Saturday’s qualifying route and removing Sunday warm-up. Aleix Espargaro is taking a wait-and-see approach, but expects more drama and greater pressure on riders when a short session decides their position on the grid.

A compressed route to the grid

A separate 15-minute Sprint qualifying session will run on Friday afternoon. Saturday qualifying will place every rider in Q1, with the 12 fastest progressing to Q2. Espargaro believes the format could produce unfamiliar grid positions, with leading riders potentially starting from 15th or even 20th place. That uncertainty is likely to add spectacle, but it also raises the cost of a blocked lap or a mistimed run.

The short session will be difficult to manage. Twenty-two motorcycles will be chasing lap time while riders deal with traffic and possible yellow flags. Espargaro expects the result to be stressful for the competitors even as it creates more drama for the championship and the audience. The outcome will depend not only on outright speed but also on finding a clear lap inside a narrow time window.

Sunday’s warm-up will be removed and replaced by a 10-minute pit-lane window. Riders will be able to complete multiple sighting laps before the race, but the format will no longer provide a conventional warm-up session. That gives the revised weekend a different preparation rhythm as well as a new qualifying structure.

The safety argument behind the technical changes

Espargaro was strongly critical of Sprint races when they arrived in 2023. He now accepts that they have improved the show and that the public has embraced them. His view of the 2027 technical package is more positive still. As part of Honda’s work on the new 850 cc motorcycle with Pirelli tyres, he describes the new rubber as very easy to ride and the motorcycles as slower. He believes that the tyre change should reduce injury risk, although he personally prefers the extra power of today’s 1,000 cc engines.

MotoGP says the revised schedule will not increase the number of high-risk time attacks because only one new set of tyres will be permitted in each qualifying session. The expectation is therefore two or three time attacks per weekend, compared with at least four under the current arrangement. The safety-versus-spectacle trade-off remains complicated. Espargaro, a former Aprilia MotoGP race winner and current HRC test rider, returned to the paddock after serious back injuries in April but withdrew from the Grand Prix because of ongoing physical discomfort.