One-time MotoGP champion and former FIM safety officer Franco Uncini says street races presented a \u201ccomplex\u201d financial hurdle during prior talks, but believes it is now \u201cfeasible\u201d.<\/p>\n
The subject of MotoGP<\/a> racing on street circuits in the future hit headlines last week, after Dorna Sports CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta said it would be possible to use certain Formula 1 city tracks<\/a>.<\/p>\n MotoGP has a history of racing on street circuits, though a push for greater rider safety saw them eventually phased out in favour of permanent venues.<\/p>\n Franco Uncini, the 1982 MotoGP world champion, said conversations had already taken place when he was FIM safety officer regarding a race on a street track.<\/p>\n In an interview with Italy\u2019s GPOne, he said the biggest issue at the time was the money needed to adapt a street circuit to feature enough run-off areas to make it safe for riders if they crashed.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Why a MotoGP street race is now \u201cfeasible\u201d<\/p>\n Uncini now believes Liberty Media\u2019s ownership of MotoGP could allow for the \u201chigh investment\u201d needed to make a street circuit viable.<\/p>\n \u201cIt had already been talked about, and we looked at some possibilities,\u201d Uncini told GPOne.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it was very complex, because it would have been necessary to alter an existing street circuit for Formula 1.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a matter of high investment, but today things have changed with the entry of Liberty Media. In my opinion, this could be feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n The key issue with any street circuit is the proximity of walls compared to a conventional permanent track.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n However, Uncini says wall proximity wouldn\u2019t be a major issue in straight parts of a circuit.<\/p>\n He also thinks Ezpeleta wouldn\u2019t have made those recent comments to DAZN if Dorna didn\u2019t \u201calready have a formula\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThose [walls] are not possible, except on the straights,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cIn that case, a wall doesn\u2019t bother us much because on the straight, even in the case of a crash, the trajectory is straight.<\/p>\n \u201cWalls are parallel, so they don\u2019t have an impact angle that can create big problems.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cAlso, straight-line crashes are very unlikely to happen, except for a technical failure.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say that a solution can be found, and if they are making certain declarations, they already have a formula.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One-time MotoGP champion and former FIM safety officer Franco Uncini says street races presented a \u201ccomplex\u201d financial hurdle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,5745,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-315044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motogp","11":"tag-motor","12":"tag-motor-sports","13":"tag-motosport","14":"tag-motosports","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}