MotoGP | Vinales' historic victory opens the debate: is the Sprint a “real” race?

In the 2024 MotoGP season, three riders were on the verge of making history: in addition to Vinales with Aprilia, Alex Rins with Yamaha and Jack Miller with KTM are the others.

Having all won Grand Prix with two manufacturers (Vinales with Suzuki and Yamaha; Rins with Suzuki and Honda; Miller with Honda and Ducati), a victory in 2024 would make them the first riders of the MotoGP era to have won with three different brands.

Vinales' first victory with Aprilia in the Portuguese Sprint effectively made him the record holder, even if he isn't officially the record holder.

When the new format was introduced last year, the Sprint victory was always listed as a separate victory from the Grand Prix victories in the record books. And, understandably, this was bound to cause problems.

An even more complicated aspect of the Sprint format is the reticence of many, including the league, to call it a “race.”

Speaking to numerous paddock journalists last year, the consensus was that the majority of content written over the weekend devoted very few columns to what was happening in the Sprint, unless it had a major influence on the Grand Prix and championship in question. general.

You only have to read the Autosport reports for each Grand Prix to realize how little the Sprint is mentioned.

After Vinales' victory in the Sprint in Portugal, which marked several milestones – the aforementioned third victory with a different bike, as well as the first for Aprilia and the first since Qatar 2021, before the acrimonious separation from Yamaha – he I'm imposing a change in tone in how Sprints are viewed by some.

For Vinales, he and his Aprilia team celebrated as if it were a Grand Prix win. For the Spaniard, the effort put into a Sprint is greater than that of a Grand Prix and the way in which his victory is classified statistically has little meaning.

“For me, it makes no difference because in the end you push yourself more in the Sprint than in the race,” he said. “Usually the Sprint is when I struggle the most, so to get a win is fantastic.”

Other drivers have taken different approaches to their Sprint victories. Alex Marquez, who won Saturday's races at Silverstone and Malaysia, told Motorsport.com last year that his Sprint success at the British GP “was nice, but it was a race in a Sprint on wet. I'm always realistic on this point, I won't say 'I won the race, I'm the best'. No, I know it was a particular situation.”

So, is a Sprint victory a real victory?

Comparing a Sprint victory to the countless Grand Prix victories that preceded it may seem a little disrespectful. Being the best for half the race certainly doesn't compare to Valentino Rossi's iconic victory over Jorge Lorenzo in Barcelona in 2009.

But what about the Grands Prix that were decided over short distances? Jorge Martin's victory in last year's Japanese Grand Prix, in a race that was stopped after 13 laps, is less impressive than Francesco Bagnaia's victory over the full distance two weeks later in Indonesia, when he inherited the lead after Martin accident?

Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Racing today is much safer today than it was in the 1990s, for example, and that should sway opinion. What about the British GP victories between 1949 and 1976, when the event was held at the Isle of Man TT?

Ultimately, statistics define what is and isn't a real race, but this somewhat belies the effort put into winning a Sprint.

Toprak Razgatlioglu took a stunning World Superbike victory in Barcelona last month in the Superpole Race, recreating Rossi's final-corner overtake on Lorenzo from 2009. It was a stunning way to mark the Turkish rider's first victory on the BMW, following his arrival from Yamaha in 2024, and will go down in history as one of the greatest WSBK races ever.

Is it important that it was a race of only 10 laps?

When Superbike introduced the Sprint – known as the Superpole Race, as it partly decides the starting grid for Race 2 – for the 2019 season, it initially decided to count Superpole Race wins and road race wins separately. The idea was abandoned after the first round, and these too officially entered the WSBK record books.

Perhaps, then, the time has come for MotoGP to embrace this concept and for the world to accept that whether a race is five laps or 50, the riders involved are giving their all in both, as if they mattered equally. way.

Maverick Vinales, Aprilia Racing Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

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