Assen, The Netherlands

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.

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.

Assen MotoGP Post-Race Subscriber Notes, Part 2: Honda's Deep, Deep Hole

By David Emmett | Sun, 09/07/2023 - 22:33

Assen is two weeks behind us, and there are still lessons to be learned, albeit extremely belatedly (for which you have my sincere apologies). In part 1 of my Assen review, I looked at just how strong Ducati has become and how Race Direction views track limits. Since then, there have been reports that Dorna is looking at ways for reappraising the way concessions are calculated, to give Honda and Yamaha a chance to catch up as the European manufacturers disappear into the horizon. So it makes sense to start with a look back at Honda's difficult weekend at Assen.

Concessions For Honda And Yamaha: Can They Happen? And Will They Help?

By David Emmett | Thu, 29/06/2023 - 23:01

It is no secret that Honda and Yamaha are struggling in MotoGP at the moment. The first rider in the championship on a Japanese motorcycle is Monster Energy Yamaha's Fabio Quartararo in ninth place with 64 points, less than a third of the total of championship leader, Ducati Lenovo's Pecco Bagnaia. Honda and Yamaha are in fourth and fifth place in the manufacturer standings, the Monster Energy Yamaha team are in sixth in the team standings and the Repsol Honda team are dead last, behind the CryptoDATA RNF Aprilia team and the GasGas Factory Racing Tech3 team, both of who have been missing their best riders for most of the season. Things are not going well.

This is bad for MotoGP in a number of ways. To start with, it makes the sport look very lopsided. Ducati have been very successful so far this year, but the lack of competitive Hondas and Yamahas only exaggerates the extent to which the Italian factory has dominated. Ducatis have won all but one of the grand prix, and all but two of the sprint races. They have taken 34 of 48 possible podium places, or 71%, and nearly 52% of all places in the top ten.

Assen MotoGP Post-Race Subscriber Notes, Part 1: Pecco Bagnaia, Momentum, And Track Limits

By David Emmett | Tue, 27/06/2023 - 23:05

Assen has always been an important race on the MotoGP calendar for a lot of reasons. It is a historic venue, where victory carries a symbolic value as well as counting toward the championship. There may be the same 25 points on offer as every other race, but at Assen, as at Mugello, Phillip Island, Jerez those 25 points feel more precious, gilded. They are 25 points that sparkle just a little more.

In 2022 and 2023, they carried even more weight than usual. Assen was the last race before an unusually long summer break, so a strong result at the Dutch TT gives riders momentum to carry in to the five-week stretch before Silverstone.

Last year, Assen felt like it had an outsized effect on the title chase. It was the place where Pecco Bagnaia ended his streak of unforced errors and posted a flawless performance to win. Fabio Quartararo, on the other hand, crashed into Aleix Espargaro, then crashed out a second time. After Sachsenring, Quartararo held a 91 point lead over the eventual champion. A week later at Assen, Bagnaia had cut the gap to 66 points.

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