Motegi, Japan

News Update: Alex Rins To Miss Silverstone, Cal Crutchlow To Wildcard At Motegi

By David Emmett | Tue, 25/07/2023 - 10:37

With the resumption of the 2023 MotoGP season approaching, some real news is starting to emerge ahead of the British GP at Silverstone. Iker Lecuona is set to replace the still recovering Alex Rins aboard the LCR Honda bike at Silverstone, and Yamaha have announced that Cal Crutchlow is to make a wildcard appearance at the Japanese round of MotoGP in Motegi.

First, to Rins. The LCR Honda rider is still recovering from the broken tibia and fibula he suffered at Mugello. That injury was so serious that recovery is a long process. On recent photos posted to social media at the weekend, to mark the celebration of his wedding, Rins was using crutches and seated in a wheelchair. Other photos on his social media accounts show him wearing a support boot and with a thin right leg, from a lack of training.

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.

MotoGP Expands to 21 Rounds, Adds India And Kazakhstan, Drops Aragon

By David Emmett | Fri, 30/09/2022 - 10:01

As predicted earlier this month, the MotoGP calendar is to expand even further for 2023. Next year, there are to be 21 races in total, with two new circuits being added to the calendar.

The news that Sokol in Kazakhstan is being added had been expected, given the announcement on Tuesday. The surprise is that India is to have a MotoGP round next year, with the expectation in the paddock that it would not happen until 2024. But MotoGP is to race at the Buddh International circuit at the end of September in 2023. There had been concerns over customs and tax issues importing equipment and bikes into India, but paddock sources indicate these issues have been settled.

Measuring Progress: How Much Faster Did MotoGP Bikes Get In The Past Three Years?

By David Emmett | Wed, 28/09/2022 - 21:52

After an absence of three years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, MotoGP is returning to the circuits in Asia and Australia. A lot has happened in those three years in terms of motorcycle development; there has been a sea change in the way that bikes are controlled, as ride-height devices have been introduced to aid acceleration and braking, and engineers have gotten a better understanding of aerodynamics, sufficient to start gaining in the corner, as well as on entry and exit.

When MotoGP raced in Argentina for the first time since 2019 earlier this year, Aleix Espargaro's winning time of 41:36.198 was more than 7.5 seconds faster than the 41:43.688 Marc Marquez took to win in 2019. Argentina, however, is not a great basis for comparison, as the track sees very little use in between races, and the condition of the surface can change a lot.

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