Motor Sports, also known internationally as Motorsport, are the set of sports disciplines practiced with motor vehicles. Motor racing individuals with cars, and by extension even with trucks and buggies, motorcycling with motorcycles and by extension even with snowmobiles; motor racing and aeronautics are a little excluded from motorsport since it is severe on cars and motorcycles.

Due to the wide variety of types of vehicles and forms of competition, there are numerous championships of each modality worldwide, continental and world federations. Motorsports are explicitly excluded from the Olympic Games, although there were events of this type as an exhibition in the Olympic Games of Paris 1900.

The danger in motorsports is, at first sight, obvious. Cars, motorcycles, and trucks were running very close at dizzying speeds or leaving alone into the wild and unknown in Resistance missions. However, as a general rule, any competition is safer than ever. Tests like the infamous Targa Florio rally in the mountains of Sicily no longer exist. And every serious incident brings with it new investigations, rule changes, and modifications to improve the safety of everyone involved. But the danger continues to lurk in some events more than in others.

Speed racing is the modality that is contested in paved circuits (in particular autodromes, but also temporary circuits like street circuits), which slide with a race format: the objective is to spin a certain number of turns in the shortest possible time or to spin as many turns as possible in a given time. The main types of cars that are used in racing, speed racing cars, passenger cars, large passenger cars, sports prototypes, and stock cars.

Motor speed racing is clearly different from the rally and the rally raid, which run in separate sections. Skidding, rallycross and autocross are also run in circuits, but in the first case, the goal of the race is not to be fast but to skid with the car, and in the remaining ones, the surface is not paved.

Competition format

A speed racing date can be made up of up to four different parts: training run, classification run, qualifying run, and final run.

In the training or practice field (possibly several), participants conduct around the circuit, assessing the characteristics of the channel and the behavior of the car. To improve turn times, the pilot modifies the different adjustment parameters of his machine (suspension, tires, brakes, etc.).

In the qualifying or ‘qualification’ run, the drivers must make laps as fast as possible to the circuit. Depending on the competition, the drivers may be restricted to spinning a best-qualified maximum number of laps and can drive alone or simultaneously. In certain championships, there is a super classification, which forces the best-qualified riders to spin again, usually without the presence of their rivals on the track.

The final race is the one that awards points for the championship. The pilots are placed in a starting grid, ordered according to the results of the classification batch. The drivers’ race and race at the same time, trying to reach the finish line as soon as possible after the time has elapsed or the previously stipulated turns. Generally, the circuit has a pit area where teams can repair cars damaged, refuel, replace tires and, in the races of resistance, change of pilot.