Moto3

Jerez MotoGP Round Postponed - Calendar Updates Put On Hold

Submitted by David Emmett on

The start of the MotoGP season has been delayed once again. Today, Dorna and the FIM announced that the Spanish Grand Prix, to be held at Jerez on May 3rd, has been postponed due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. The postponement affects the MotoGP, Moto2, and Moto3 classes, as well as MotoE. It also means the loss of the official IRTA test scheduled for the Monday after Jerez.

Unlike previous races, however, a new date for the Jerez round has not been announced. This reflects the reality of an ongoing, fast-moving situation, in which Dorna is dependent on too many external factors to be able to draw up a schedule which is likely to hold up over the next few months. Until the course of the global pandemic becomes clearer, any calendar is provision at best.

For a deeper dive into the problems facing Dorna as they attempt to assemble a new calendar, see this article posted last night.

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Coronavirus Update: The Challenges Facing MotoGP And WorldSBK In 2020 And Beyond

Submitted by David Emmett on

No news is good news, at least as far as the current outbreak of COVID-19, or the coronavirus is concerned. And for thirteen days – nearly two whole weeks – we went without a change to the calendars of either the WorldSBK and MotoGP calendars. Given the speed at which the world has changed over the past two weeks, that is almost an eternity in normal time.

The same could not be said for other motorsport disciplines. For two weeks, we have been inundated with cancellations and postponements. The Le Mans 24 Hours Endurance motorcycle race has been postponed until August. The Daytona 200 and Daytona TT flat track races were postponed until October. The Merzouga Rally has been canceled, the route of the Silk Way Rally changed. The Isle of Man TT was canceled, Supercross and MXGP had rounds canceled and postponed.

The TT wasn't the only iconic event to be canceled. F1 canceled Monaco, probably the most prestigious race on its calendar, and postponed the races at Zandvoort and Barcelona, joining the Bahrain, Vietnam and China races in being pushed back to the second half of the year. The Le Mans 24 Hours car race was put back until September.

Changing day by day

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Filling The Gap: Dorna Announce Virtual Race With Top MotoGP Riders, Free Access To Videopass Content

Submitted by David Emmett on

With on-track racing a distant prospect for the foreseeable future, Dorna is acting to fill the hole created by the COVID-19 outbreak. Today, they announced that on Sunday, March 29th, they will be holding a virtual race around Mugello using the official MotoGP video game.

The race is to start at 3pm CET, and will feature some of the top MotoGP riders playing the game. Valentino Rossi, Maverick Viñales, Fabio Quartararo, Alex Rins, and Marc Marquez have all signed up for Sunday's virtual race.

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Dorna Press Release: Carmelo Ezpeleta - Dorna Working To Ensure Modified Calendar Is Only Consequence Of COVID-19 Outbreak

Submitted by Press Release on

Dorna today issued the following press release, containing a letter from CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta, concerning their ongoing plans for the 2020 season:

Letter from Dorna Sports CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta
Friday, 20 March 2020

Dear all,

Today, the OR Thailand Grand Prix was set to be getting underway in Buriram; the race weekend that was meant to be the second of the season. The entire MotoGP™ paddock and family was supposed to be doing what we love the most: racing. We would have loved to watch the riders from each category fighting it out on track and delighting us to another last corner battle like we’ve come to expect from Buriram.

We would have loved to see the many international members of the paddock back hard at work for our fans; both those who travel from all over the world to join us trackside in Thailand and those who, like they do every race weekend, follow us faithfully from every corner of the globe.

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Editor's Blog - The Editorial Plan For The Duration Of The Coronavirus Outbreak

Submitted by David Emmett on

With the COVID-19 outbreak having paralyzed racing for the next month, at the very least, I thought it might be useful to provide an update on what you can expect from MotoMatters.com until we start racing again.

The short version is that there will be plenty of content coming on the site over the next few weeks, but that I will be taking weekends off. We will be publishing articles and photo galleries throughout the week, but no new content will be added to the site on Saturdays and Sundays, unless some dramatic development happens during the weekend.

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Coronavirus: The State Of Play, What Happens Next, And Why

Submitted by David Emmett on

The outbreak of novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, has wreaked havoc on many things: public health, international transport, the global economy, and much more. But as MotoMatters.com is a site about world championship motorcycle road racing, we are concerned above all on the effect it has had on the MotoGP and WorldSBK seasons. As of Friday 13th March 2020, Dorna and the FIM had postponed the Buriram, Austin and Argentina rounds of MotoGP, and the Jerez round of WorldSBK, and were forced to cancel the MotoGP class at the season opener at Qatar.

Things have changed so fast over the past two weeks that it is almost impossible to keep up. As Twitter racing wit SofaRacer put it, "A month ago, the state of Marc Márquez’ shoulder was the big talking point of the season. Halcyon days." Since then, a small, contained outbreak of a new flu-like disease has gone from a curiosity in a remote location far from any traditional racetracks to a global pandemic, sweeping through the racing heartlands of Italy and Spain.

Pace of change

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Dorna Press Release: Carmelo Ezpeleta Interview On The 2020 MotoGP Season

Submitted by David Emmett on

Dorna today issued a press release containing an interview with CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta, in which he updates everyone on the plans for the 2020 MotoGP season, and how they are handling the current coronavirus outbreak. You can also watch the interview with Ezpeleta on the MotoGP.com website.

Interview: Dorna Sports CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta
Thursday, 12 March 2020

Following the recent updates to the 2020 MotoGP™ calendar, Dorna Sports CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta sat down for an interview on the changes and how the sport is reacting to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. Despite the recent difficulties faced by much of the sporting world, the message to the MotoGP™ community remains an optimistic one as work continues round the clock to get our tantalising 2020 season underway.

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2020 MotoGP Calendar Updated Version 3 - Argentina Postponed To November, Triple Header To Close The Season

Submitted by David Emmett on

The MotoGP calendar has been changed again due to the ongoing outbreak of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. This time, it is the Argentina round of the series, due to be held in Termas de Rio Hondo on April 19th, which has been postponed. The race has now been set for November 22nd, the date Valencia was moved to in yesterday's updated calendar, with Valencia now slated for November 29th.

Moving the Argentina race became almost inevitable, after the Argentine round of MXGP at Neuquen was rescheduled last night. With more and more countries imposing travel restrictions on Italians - Malaysia will be imposing a ban on Italian passport holders, and anyone who has been in Italy in the last 14 days from this Friday, March 13th - organizing events for a sport with such a significant Italian component has become nigh-on impossible.

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Guest Blog: Mat Oxley - Postcard from the Coronavirus Grand Prix

Submitted by Mat Oxley on

The Qatar GP has been MotoGP’s strangest weekend since 2004 – last weekend it got even weirder

The Qatar Grand Prix has always felt a bit unreal. The first time MotoGP visited in October 2004 the newly built track was a 20-minute drive out of Doha into the desert – the Arabian Gulf shimmering in the east, a few caravans of camels ambling along in the distance, but nothing else.

Nothing else at all. There we were, marooned in a sea of sand, watched over by at least a dozen spectators, wondering what the hell was going on.

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2020 MotoGP Calendar Updated Again - Austin Postponed To November, Valencia Moved A Week

Submitted by David Emmett on

The ongoing outbreak of novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, has forced yet another change to the MotoGP calendar for 2020. Due to the restrictions on movement imposed in Italy, in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus, the US round of MotoGP at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, has been postponed until November.

The MotoGP paddock will gather in Austin on November 15th, instead of April 5th. November 15th was originally the date planned for the final round of MotoGP in Valencia, but to make way for Austin, Valencia has been pushed back a week, and will now be held on the weekend of November 22nd.

That means that as of today, March 10th, the MotoGP class will kick off their season at the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit in Argentina on April 19th, with the paddock returning to Europe two weeks later for Jerez.

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