What do a team's trips in the MotoGP World Championship represent, in figures? The Ángel Nieto team has done the math.
When a season ends, there remains the memory of the victories, the joy of good results and the satisfaction of the work accomplished. We then forget the working hours, the endless travels or the days away from home, far from loved ones. Because behind the cameras, before the televisions turn on or after they turn off on Sunday, the activity continues. In total, a season like 2018, with 19 Grands Prix and 3 pre-season tests, plus a final test after the Valencia race, represents almost 160 days away from home, of which only 71 are spent on track.
Team Ángel Nieto, which is based in Spain, took 54 flights to arrive at these 19 destinations and these 4 tests. Some are long, 12 or 14 hours, and others short, like going to Jerez, for example. From Australia to Argentina via the United States or Thailand, the MotoGP World Championship offers a unique opportunity to travel, but without having the time to discover the sites around the circuits and see further than rental cars, planes and airports.
It is only possible to see them when the races take place outside Europe, when the atmosphere and pressure ease and the majority of teams have no hospitality, where they normally live when they are in Europe. See kangaroos in Australia, dine in a real Japanese restaurant in Motegi, eat an “asado argentino” (a type of typical Argentine barbecue) in Termas de Río Hondo, visit the shopping centers of Kuala Lumpur…
A video call can hide the 17 kilometers that separate Phillip Island from our house, but it cannot erase the 000 hours of flight (and even more if you count waiting in airports) or the 260 kilometers traveled in a year ( the equivalent of more than 184 times around the world), in the planes of 000 companies, without having time to leave its mark in the 4 countries visited on 14 continents. In total, there are 17 different busy airports, each with its own passport controls when traveling outside the European Union. American control is certainly the most worrying.
Once you get off the plane, the journey is not over since you have to pick up the rental car with which to arrive at the circuit. Distances between locations can vary greatly. This ranges from the 15 minutes between Valencia airport and the Ricardo Tormo Circuit to the 5 hour drive between Bangkok and the Buriram circuit.
You have to get to the circuit and then start working. Before the races, two days are needed to set up and prepare everything. Wednesday is the day the team box is set up, and Thursday the day the bikes are checked to ensure they are still in perfect condition since the last race. These two days, during which the drivers take the opportunity to respond to requests from the media, are essential so that everything is ready on Friday, so that the first free practice sessions can take place. At the end of the year, this represents 46 days.
And from this moment, finally, all that remains is to enter the track to give the maximum and fight to win. Then you have to count again the kilometers that remain to be covered before returning home.
