Not Everyone's Happy With Liberty Media's MotoGP Takeover. Just Ask Simoncelli Senior

Marco Simoncelli's dad, Paolo, is also the owner of the Sic58 Squadra Corse team, and he's not a fan of Liberty Media's proposed changes.

By: Janaki Jitchotvisut

Dec 19, 2025 at 7:33am ET

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It's purportedly a new day in MotoGP, and the changes are already underway. While a lot of attention (including ours) was focused on sketchy new math robbing Marc Márquez of championship wins that would previously have counted toward his total just days before he clinched the 2025 championship, he was hardly the only rider in MotoGP history to lose out.

All the heavy hitters who've won high numbers of championships have done so across multiple classes. That's how MotoGP has worked for literally its entire existence. Take the living legend Giacomo Agostini, for example. He won a total of 15 world championships, but they weren't all in the same class. Indeed, eight were in the 500cc class (the premier class of the time period), while seven were in the 350cc class. Or what about Ángel Nieto, who won 13 championships in total? Seven of those were in the 125cc class, while six were in the 50cc class.

Are we just going to pretend that those accomplishments don't count anymore? Says who?

This has been a topic of discussion amongst the RideApart staff for months now, but we're far from the only ones who feel this way. Paolo Simoncelli (Marco's dad, who is also the owner of the Sic58 Squadra Corse Moto3 team, and who also had a team competing in MotoE before it was disbanded) is just about ready to throw in the towel on his time in racing over it.

At least, that's what he said in a recent interview with Italian paper Corriere Della Sera. The reason translates to something like "these Americans [Liberty Media] have already broken me."

The 75-year-old isn't afraid to speak his mind, and seems frustrated with what's been happening. He said that it feels like Liberty doesn't respect what has been built over the decades, particularly with regard to wanting to recalculate all the championships as to what counts or doesn't.

What do you think?

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It's changing history, and it's erasing some things that shouldn't be erased. He also feels like all that Liberty wants is the spectacle, the circus (both are words he actually used.) It's not about the love of motorcycle racing for them; it's only about the drama. Simoncelli feels that you could naturally achieve more drama while still keeping a good racing ladder by requiring MotoGP teams to also race squads in Moto2 and Moto3. But that's not the way things are going, and he's tired.

Maybe even tired enough to give up racing for good.