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KymiRing, Finland

How To Build A MotoGP Calendar, Part 2: Carlos Ezpeleta On Which Races Go Where, The Problems Of Transport, And Publishing The Calendar

By David Emmett | Tue, 25/07/2023 - 09:20

In the first part of this interview with Carlos Ezpeleta, Dorna's Chief Sporting Officer explained the political challenges of putting together a calendar for MotoGP. In the second half of our conversation, Ezpeleta discusses the contractual and logistical constraints on the MotoGP calendar. He gives us a peek into the 2024 calendar, and talks about balancing the input from the teams against the requests from the circuits.

Q: Coming to logistics, which is one of the most interesting factors. Races in Europe can only be held at a certain time. So for example, even though Finland was canceled, you could only race at the KymiRing in the summer. How do you slot all of that together? You’ve also got not just weather but also travel.

Carlos Ezpeleta: Yes. Let’s say that we know what events are going to be in the calendar for the year that we’re designing the calendar for. You start to sort of make a rough draft of that. Number one is your contractual obligations, which for example could be Qatar starting the calendar as the first race, and Valencia currently ending it. So, that’s pretty clear.

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How To Build A MotoGP Calendar, Part 1: Carlos Ezpeleta On Balancing Politics, Logistics, And The Weather

By David Emmett | Mon, 24/07/2023 - 13:45

There is nothing quite as frustrating as the MotoGP calendar, to those inside the sport as well as those outside. Each time MotoGP's schedule is published, it is met with a mixture of excitement about the coming year, and irritation about the inevitable back-to-back races, gaps, clashes, and choices of venue. Fans are thrilled to see MotoGP at their favorite track, or disappointed that the series is going back to their least favorite track. And different fans will have diametrically opposite views of which tracks are best, and which should be ditched.

That is hardly surprising. You can't keep everybody happy, not least because putting together a calendar of 20+ events is an incredibly complex task. There are so many different factors to balance, many of which people outside the process are not even aware of. There's the logistics of getting from one circuit to another, weather, track availability, medical facilities.

You want to avoid clashes with F1 – something which gets harder as the F1 calendar expands – and try not to schedule races in the same country too close together. And there are only a limited number of circuits which are safe enough to hold a MotoGP race. Adding new circuits can be a process of years, and slotting them in means making space elsewhere.

Juggling act

In short, it is a complicated process fraught with a million headaches. The devil is indeed in the detail, and the details run deeper than most people realize.

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Finland MotoGP Race Postponed To 2023 - 2022 MotoGP Calendar Cut To 20 Races

By David Emmett | Wed, 25/05/2022 - 10:09

The long-running saga of the Finnish GP at the Kymiring is to have another chapter added to it. Today, the FIM announced that the Grand Prix of Finland, due to be held on July 8th, has been canceled. In a press release, the FIM gave the reason for the cancellation as "homologation works" and the "ongoing political situation in the region".

There have long been doubts that the circuit would host a MotoGP race this year. Reports from sources in Finland paint a picture of a circuit which still needs a lot of work doing to it. Though the surface is finished, the rest of the facilities are still not up to the standard necessary to host a MotoGP round.

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2022 Provisional MotoGP Calendar Released: 21 Races In 35 Weeks

By David Emmett | Wed, 06/10/2021 - 16:04

The 2022 MotoGP calendar will feature a total of 21 races, starting in Qatar on March 6th and finishing exactly 8 months later in Valencia. The 2022 calendar sees further expansion of the number of races, as Dorna add new circuits and new countries to the schedule. For the Kymiring in Finland, that had originally been planned for 2020, but the pandemic put paid to that happening, either in 2020 or 2021. And the Mandalika Resort circuit on Lombok in Indonesia had been added to 2021 as a reserve circuit, but will now be raced on at the start of next season.

  • Read more about 2022 Provisional MotoGP Calendar Released: 21 Races In 35 Weeks
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2021 MotoGP Calendar Update: Finland Canceled, Extra Round In Austria Added

By David Emmett | Fri, 14/05/2021 - 08:37

The Kymiring will have to wait. Today, the FIM announced that due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the complications posed by travel, the Finnish Grand Prix at the Kymiring has been canceled for 2021. But in compensation, the circuit in Finland is to get a five-year contract to host MotoGP for the years 2022 to 2026.

Travel to the Kymiring was always going to be difficult. The Finnish Grand Prix is treated like a European round of MotoGP, but the logistics of getting trucks from Assen to Finland is not simple. It involves either a very long ferry ride from Germany to Finland, on a route with limited capacity and which is often fully booked, or a very long road trip through Russia up to Finland, with all the customs complications that involves. Add in the extra complications added by Covid-19 - at the time of writing, there is a compulsory 14-day quarantine for travellers to Finland - and the race poses too much of a risk.

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Provisional 2021 MotoGP Calendar Announced - 20 Races, Normal Schedule, 3 Reserve Circuits

By David Emmett | Fri, 06/11/2020 - 11:44

MotoGP will continue into 2021, and scheduling difficulties continue to accompany it. Unlike 2020, however, Dorna and the FIM are prepared for it, however, and so today, we saw a provisional 2021 MotoGP calendar announced. It is a very conventional-looking schedule, with a giant caveat attached underneath: "All dates, events and the attendance of spectators are subject to the evolution of the pandemic and the approval of the corresponding Governments and authorities."

After two tests, at Sepang in mid February and Qatar in mid March, the 2021 season is scheduled to kick off at Qatar on March 28th. After Qatar, the series heads to the Americas, where MotoGP races in Argentina at Termas de Rio Hondo and at Austin. They then head back to Europe, for the usual round of spring races: Jerez, Le Mans, Mugello, Barcelona, Sachsenring, and Assen. They round it off with a trip to Finland, subject to the Kymiring being homologated on time.

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First COVID-19 Cancellations: Sachsenring, Assen, And Kymiring MotoGP Rounds Scrapped For 2020

By David Emmett | Wed, 29/04/2020 - 11:17

So far, the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the 2020 MotoGP season has been to delay everything. But today, we had the first cancellations. The races at the Sachsenring in Germany, Assen in the Netherlands, and the Kymiring in Finland have all been canceled for 2020.

Canceling the remaining three races due to be held before the summer break gives Dorna and the FIM some room to see how the outbreak of the coronavirus plays out, as countries start to gently ease restrictions. There was too much uncertainty surrounding the three rounds in late June and early July to know under what conditions they would have been able to go ahead.

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Organizer Officially Announces Postponement Of Finland MotoGP Round

By David Emmett | Fri, 24/04/2020 - 14:43

It was already apparent on Wednesday that the Finnish round of MotoGP would have to be postponed. Today, we have confirmation. Lahti Events, the promoter of the Finnish MotoGP round, announced on its website that the race, due to be held on July 12th, has been postponed.

The Kymiring circuit was still due to be homologated, but clement weather during a mild winter had allowed the contractors to make good progress on construction of the facilities at the track.

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Another Domino Falls: Finland Extends Ban On Large Events Until July 31

By David Emmett | Wed, 22/04/2020 - 21:42

Yesterday, the Dutch government announced it was extending the ban on public events until September 1st, putting an end to hopes of racing in June. Today, the Finnish government have ended any hope of MotoGP racing in July. At a press conference on Wednesday evening, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced that all gatherings of over 500 people are to remain banned until July 31st.

That would make it impossible to hold the Finnish Grand Prix, due to be held on July 12th at the new Kymiring circuit, 130 km northeast of Helsinki. Although no announcements have been made officially, the race in Finland was the first race left on the calendar after announcements in Germany and The Netherlands made it impossible for the races at the Sachsenring and Assen to be held.

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

By David Emmett | Tue, 10/03/2020 - 16:01

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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