2023 MotoGP spectators: Sprint Saturdays, Le Mans record, Mugello recovery

In broad terms a total of 2,857,925 people were counted as attending a MotoGP event in 2023, compared with 2,427,928 in 2022.

Le Mans set a new ‘MotoGP record’ of 278,805 fans over the French weekend, although “On the weekend of July 20, 1952, a crowd estimated at over 400,000 flocked to Solitude for the West German Grand Prix.”

Germany’s current Sachsenring grand prix venue was the only other event to top the 200,000 weekend total this year, while Mugello made the biggest turnaround, increasing its trackside audience by 61,592 after a miserable 2022 attendance.

Both seasons consisted of 20 rounds, although Aragon was only present in 2022 while Buddh made its MotoGP debut in 2023. For reasons that are not entirely clear, COTA continues to withhold attendance figures.

Since a weekend total is calculated by adding up spectator numbers for each day, the same fan attending on Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be counted three times.

As such, attendance for individual days is arguably more significant, especially in terms of measuring the impact of Sprint races, introduced on a Saturday afternoon for 2023.

The Saturday-only attendance table is again topped by Le Mans, but - excluding Buddh and Aragon - also shows an increase of 197,489 more Saturday fans compared to the same events in 2022.

The Sunday-only attendance increased by 157,295 this season.

The Valencia finale, the venue for a title showdown for the past two years, saw the biggest Saturday increase with an extra 23,971 fans attending to watch the Bagnaia vs (home star) Martin battle.

Only Termas de Rio Hondo and Mandalika saw less fans through the gate on Saturday this year, compared to 2022, although Argentina was effectively the same and still a healthy 60,000+.

Le Mans completed a clean sweep of the daily crowds by heading the Sunday list (116,692), closely followed by Assen. Sachsenring, Red Bull Ring, Valencia and Sepang pulled in 90,000+.

Sold-out venues in 2022 obviously had little to no extra capacity for further Sunday spectator increases.

Phillip Island was unsurprisingly the only significant Sunday drop this season, extreme weather forcing the grand prix to be moved to Saturday afternoon.

Qatar’s revamped Lusail circuit was again at the bottom of the attendance tables but recorded a big increase of 37, 078 fans over 2022 and a weekend total of 55,050 was by far its biggest yet...