This past weekend (Sunday 5 June), we had the pleasure of attending round nine of the MotoGP™ 2022 World Championship at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. 

Listen to the Grabyo Podcast as EMEA Marketing Manager, Becca Badcock, and Head of Content, Scott Lunn, talk more about their time at the MotoGP™.

Over 50,000 people made their way to the track on the outskirts of the Spanish city to witness Fabio Quartararo win his second race of the season, alongside a first corner crash and premature finish from Aprilia rider Aleix Espargaró. 

An unpredictable race as always, MotoGP™ excelled at providing instant and immersive video coverage of every rider, turn and angle from the 4.675km track to fans across the world. 

Dorna Sports is the commercial rights holder of MotoGP™ and a long-term partner of Grabyo. Its content team uses our live clipping and publishing tools to deliver real-time highlights and videos to its social and digital channels. The use of Grabyo has played a significant role in growing MotoGP’s social following past 30 million people. 

The real success behind MotoGP™’s success on social media is the innovative and fresh ideas it brings to these platforms, creating a rich online experience for fans using video content. Here’s how Dorna’s team brought the 2022 Catalunya GP to life online:

The set-up

Traveling across the globe for the world championship means that Dorna has to pack light and efficiently. Although the Catalunya GP was in MotoGP™’s hometown of Barcelona, this event was no different.

Dorna uses a mobile office placed inside the MotoGP™ Paddock, which takes about four days to construct. Housed in this office are the onsite communications and operations teams. Once the event is over, the entire office is taken down in hours and shipped to its next destination. 

Using Grabyo Studio to clip and publish highlights, the social and content team worked entirely remotely, either at home or Dorna’s office HQ. Grabyo’s cloud platform enables every team member to access live race feeds and MotoGP™’s VOD library to create clips and videos from anywhere, delivering consistently branded content to every channel. 

The Paddock also contains the broadcaster’s center and provides an opportunity for pundits from the likes of BT Sport and DAZN to go live on-location. 

Pre-race: The build-up

Before the race began, Dorna brought fans behind the scenes in the Paddock and on the track using its social channels.

Dorna leveraged the famous visitors to the track to create some compelling pre-race content featuring Money Heist star Miguel Herran and musician Rauw Alejandro.

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A post shared by MotoGP™ (@motogp)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MotoGP™ (@motogp)

The Dorna team also used Grabyo to provide real-time video updates from across Moto2 and Moto3, which took place just before the showpiece.

This part of Dorna’s strategy allows fans to experience the entire GP weekend no matter where they are in the world, bringing the atmosphere and emotion straight to every screen.

Social media has become the primary destination for these experiences, and Dorna is leveraging its potential across every platform by posting TikTok Live streams, Instagram Reels and posts to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The race begins: Ready for anything

Every MotoGP™ race is unpredictable. You can never be sure when or where, along the 4.675km of track in Catalunya, something is going to happen.

But due to a host of technological and creative innovations, Dorna was prepared. Every moment was captured by several cameras along the track, on each rider’s bike and on a helicopter overhead. Dorna covered every angle at all times, and its team was ready to react.

In Catalunya, it didn’t take long. On the first corner, an unfortunate slip led to a crash that took two riders out of the race.

Within moments, Dorna’s social team was able to create multiple clips from multiple angles and publish them across Twitter and Instagram using Grabyo. Fans were able to rewatch and analyze the crash within minutes, and those who weren’t able to attend or watch live on TV could witness it as it happened.

It was a thrilling 24 laps which culminated in an extraordinary finish. Aprilia rider Aleix Espargaró crossed the finish line, under the impression he had finished the race in second, and began waving to the crowd and celebrating. However, he still had one lap to go and quickly realized once he was overtaken by three riders, leaving him in fifth place.

A mistake we’ve seen before and one we’ll surely see again 🛑@AleixEspargaro‘s incredible weekend at his home GP fell victim to human error 😢#CatalanGP 🏁 pic.twitter.com/vVpK3qWJAx

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) June 5, 2022

What would become the main talking point of the weekend, Dorna highlighted the raw emotion and immediate reaction of the moment from the Aprilia paddock and Aleix himself. This level of storytelling elevates engagement on social media and enables fans to connect with the riders and teams in a more personal and passionate way.

Seeing firsthand how Dorna’s entire team works seamlessly to deliver such a complex yet incredibly efficient content strategy was energizing for us. Both onsite and remotely, the Dorna team produces high-quality and engaging content consistently, satisfying their existing fans while growing their community. We are proud to play our part in making this happen, and we look forward to watching the rest of the season with great interest!

For more information on how Grabyo can help enhance your digital and social event coverage, get in touch.