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Another piece has slotted into place for the 2021 MotoGP season, and like the last announcement - Alex Rins at Suzuki Ecstar MotoGP - it is far from a surprise. Today, Suzuki announced it has extended its deal with Joan Mir for another two years, for the 2021 and the 2022 seasons.

The deal had been long coming. Talks had been ongoing for a while, to such an extent that Joan Mir dropped a very heavy hint that the deal was done in an Instagram Live question and answer session, saying that he "wasn't allowed to say anything" but that he would have news soon.

Mir's signing makes it two factory teams which are full up, Suzuki joining the Monster Energy Yamaha team. Two more riders are signed for the future: Tito Rabat has another year on his deal at Avintia, and will be riding in 2021. And Marc Marquez is locked in at Repsol Honda for four more seasons after this, and will race for them through 2024.

The next moves on the MotoGP rider market are likely to take some more time. Valentino Rossi has been told that there will be a factory bike with factory support from Yamaha if he decides to race in 2021, which is looking increasingly likely as the start of the season is delayed further, giving him fewer races to base a decision on. KTM is likely to stick with their current riders, and Aprilia looks likely to retain Aleix Espargaro, though the second rider is in question.

The Ducati seats seem to be open, with an abundance of candidates. Ducati have made clear they want so see some racing before making a decision, and are in no rush to make their minds up.

Current MotoGP rider line up for the 2021 season:

Press release from Suzuki announcing Joan Mir has extended his contract:

SUZUKI CONFIRMS THE RENEWAL OF JOAN MIR FOR 2021 AND 2022

Team Suzuki Press Office – May 2.

Team Suzuki Ecstar and Suzuki Racing Company are pleased to announce that Joan Mir will remain in blue colours for the 2021 and 2022 seasons. The news of the renewal of his contract comes shortly after that of Alex Rins, who will also be with the team until 2022. The pairing provide a solid and competitive unit for Suzuki as they look towards the future and aim high in terms of results.

Joan Mir made his MotoGP debut with Team Suzuki Ecstar in 2019, following a highly successful Moto3 season in 2017 which saw him crowned champion. The 22 year old who hails from Palma de Mallorca came quickly through the ranks early in his career and proved to be a fast learner when making his ‘top class’ debut too. Gelling well with his new team, he secured 8th place in his inaugural race in Suzuki colours, going on to score another nine Top 10 finishes in 2019 despite an injury hit mid-season.

Once fully recovered, Joan was able to pick up an impressive 5th place finish at Phillip Island last season, and in the 2020 pre-season tests he was showing fantastic form and pace with the latest generation GSX-RR.

The current situation surrounding the Covid-19 crisis makes for a strange environment for both the team and the rider at the moment, with so much uncertainty in the air. However, this latest announcement ensures a firm eye is kept on the future and proves the confidence which Team Suzuki Ecstar have in their young rider.

Shinichi Sahara - Project Leader:

“We are proud to have reached an agreement with Mir alongside Rins and maintain the current lineup. This will give us a continuity that will be very helpful for the development from a technical point of view. The consistency of keeping the same riders is very important, because it helps us keep track of the progress made and means we stay on the right path. Beside this, Joan is a talented rider, he has already shown strong skills last year and we believe he could harvest some important successes with our team as soon as his experience grows.”

Davide Brivio:

“We are very happy to have reached an agreement with Joan Mir and have him complete our lineup for the next two years. We consider Joan a very talented rider and it is important to continue together to take full advantage of the experience that we have built so far and trying to improve even more. We are also happy to have a young team with two very strong riders such as Alex and Joan, which has always been our real target. This allows us to look to the future with confidence.

“I would like to thank Joan for trusting us with his future and also the whole Suzuki Motor Corporation who supports us. Being able to extend the agreements with both Alex Rins and Joan Mir during such an extraordinary and strange moment in history is a sign that give us high hopes for the future, and encouragement to all the fans to look ahead with positivity and optimism, with the hope of being able to get back on track as soon as possible.”

Joan Mir:

“I’m extremely happy to sign with Suzuki for another two years - renewing is the best thing that could happen and it’s a dream come true again! It’s really important for me to continue because now I have more time to learn and more time to show my potential. Two years can go by quickly, but I am ready to arrive at a higher level, and we are working every day to make that happen. I am also so pleased on a personal level because I have a really good team and crew around me. I really want to thank everyone at Suzuki for their confidence in me, and let’s see if I can get the results that we’re capable of.”

#SuzukiStaySafe #WeWillReunite #RidersAtHome #StayAtHome

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.

It is the third race in a row where the promoter or circuit has announced that the race has been postponed, rather than Dorna or the FIM. Yesterday, the TT Circuit Assen posted an update on its website to say that the Dutch round of MotoGP had been postponed, and the ADAC, promoter of the German round at the Sachsenring, announced on April 16th that the German Grand Prix has been postponed without a date.

No new dates have been given for the race, as none can be given at the moment. There are still too many external dependencies to be able to plan for the future. Restrictions are slowly starting to be lifted in Europe, but there is still a long way to go before a realistic calendar can be posted.

The text of the announcement is below:

The decision to postpone the Finnish MotoGP race is made by Dorna Sports, which owns rights of the competition

The Finnish government has recommended that events for more than 500 people not be held before August due to a coronavirus pandemic. Decision of postpone of MotoGP Finland competition is made by Dorna Sports and race track owner KymiRing in accordance with the instructions of the Finnish Government.

Dorna Sport has promised to announce the future of MotoGP Finland as soon as possible.

The 2020 world championship motorcycle racing calendar continues to slide due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday evening, it became apparent that there will be no racing in either MotoGP or WorldSBK before the end of June. After last Wednesday's announcement by German Chancellor Angela Merkel that large-scale events would be banned in Germany through August 31st, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte extended the ban on large-scale events in The Netherlands to September 1st.

These two announcements have a direct bearing on the WorldSBK and MotoGP calendars. Officially, the next two MotoGP races are at the Sachsenring on June 21st, and Assen on June 28th. Those races will now have to be either postponed or rescheduled until after August 31st.

The announcements also mean that the WorldSBK races will have to be rescheduled. The German round was due to be held at Motorsport Arena Oschersleben from July 31st to August 2nd. The Dutch round of World Superbikes had already been rescheduled from mid-April to August 21st to 23rd.

That round will now have to be rescheduled once again, though finding a slot in an increasingly crowded calendar will be difficult. The Assen circuit has the German DTM touring car championship scheduled for the first weekend of September, then the British Superbike championship weekend set for the weekend of September 20th.

The track has its two other biggest events - the Truckstar Festival and the Gamma Racing Day, both of which draw crowds in the tens of thousands - set for July and August. The Truckstar Festival has already been canceled, but if the Gamma Racing Day is rescheduled, that would put pressure on an already packed program.

Motorcycle racing is possible at Assen through October, given the climate. Racing at the Sachsenring or Oschersleben would be better done in September than in October, with the risk of a cold snap making it too cold to hold practice safely.

Dorna is making plans to hold events behind closed doors, if conditions permit. These events would see a skeleton crew of between 1,000 and 1,200 people in the paddock to run the event, including riders, the minimum number of team staff, and the bare minimum of race officials and Dorna organizational and TV staff. But such a set up would not be allowed in The Netherlands, at least, as current measures put in place to counter the coronavirus outbreak prohibit any gatherings of people outside of essential services.

So far, the FIM and Dorna have yet to make an official announcement about the postponement or rescheduling of the races in Germany and The Netherlands. That announcement is likely to come at the end of this week, once they have had time to discuss with the circuits in question.

With the Sachsenring and Assen canceled, the next world championship event on the calendar is WorldSBK at Donington Park, due to be held from July 3rd-5th. Currently, restrictions put in place to combat the spread of the coronavirus will last until at least the first week in May, but the UK government has made it clear they expect to have to extend that period beyond that.

For MotoGP, the next officially scheduled race would be at the Kymiring in Finland. But that circuit has still not officially been homologated, a process which is being hampered by the fact that FIM safety officer Franco Uncini is in Italy, and unable to leave.

The earliest racing might reasonably be expected is August. The Czech MotoGP round at Brno would be the obvious place to start, but the Czech Republic has declared a state of emergency and banned all travel into the country. That ban will be in place until the state of emergency ends, but the current expectation is it could last well through the summer.

That would put Austria as the likely candidate for the first MotoGP race. Austria is starting to slowly lift the restrictions it placed to counter the COVID-19 outbreak. An event behind closed doors might be possible in mid-August, something which the F1 series is also contemplating in July.

However, huge obstacles remain. The Schengen Area inside the EU - which contains most of the European countries which are due to host MotoGP and WorldSBK - remains closed to non-EU citizens until May 15th at the earliest. Given the large number of non-EU nationals working in MotoGP - including a significant number of riders - any race would be impossible until that ban is lifted, at least.

In the end, it is still too early to say when the first MotoGP or WorldSBK event might take place. At this moment in time, too much depends on a whole range of national, regional, and international governments and authorities. Until restrictions start to be lifted on an international scale, the obstacles to a return to racing will remain insurmountable.

While the COVID-19 pandemic holds the world firmly in its grip, Dorna continues to examine options for returning to racing once that becomes possible. Although any decision on when racing is possible is entirely out of Dorna's hands, they are still drawing up plans for a range of options for when the current round of global lockdowns and travel restrictions end.

One option Dorna is considering is holding races behind closed doors, with an absolute minimum of staff present. A leaked email, which started circulating on Wednesday, asked the teams to provide a list of the minimum required members of staff they would need to run a race. The request explicitly excluded hospitality and PR staff, as the aim is to only allow team members who are essential to the task of racing.

Does this mean that Dorna believe this is the only way MotoGP and WorldSBK will be able to go racing again? Not at all. When contacted by email, IRTA CEO Mike Trimby explained that the purpose of the email being sent was to be prepared for all possible situations in the future.

"Clearly, we are exploring all options but every one depends on what restrictions are removed on travel and mass gatherings. And such restrictions will vary from country to country," Trimby said.

"The purpose of the survey sent to teams was to establish the minimum numbers of people that we would need to safely run an event behind closed doors," Trimby explained. "Having that information would enable us to move quickly to provide genuine information to promoters or governments if an opportunity was to arise." The option of racing behind closed doors was not the only one being investigated by Dorna, but it could be the best chance of racing again, at least in the short term, Trimby said.

Even holding races behind closed doors would be difficult, however. The minimum number of people required to just hold races in all three Grand Prix classes is somewhere between 1000 and 1500. Those people have to travel from many different countries, the most important being Spain, Andorra, Italy, Japan, France, Austria, Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom, as the bases for most teams, manufacturers, tire suppliers, suspension makers, and of course IRTA themselves. The riders themselves come from 19 different nations, though riders from South Africa, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Argentina have bases in Europe for a large part of the season anyway.

Those 1000-1500 people would all have to travel to any race being held, either by commercial flight, car, bus, or train, which would require international flights to start operating again and borders to open up again. They would also have to find somewhere to stay, which would require hotels to be open.

Most importantly of all, governments would have to believe that such events could be held without the risk of someone involved in the sport carrying the virus without knowing it and sparking another round of infections. Preventing that might require all sorts of preventative measures, including testing and contact tracing.

Alongside this plan, Dorna continues to liaise with IRTA, the FIM, and the MSMA about other options. At the moment, all Dorna can do is draw up plans to deal with the many different scenarios they may face. That includes racing behind closed doors, but also calendars starting in July, August, September, and October, and trying to work out with circuits when the series could race there at different points in the year.

Making plans for a world championship motorcycle racing season is like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle with half of the pieces missing. It will get easier once we get a clearer picture of how the COVID-19 outbreak is developing, and as countries coordinate on strategies for containing and eventually eradicating the disease.

Below is the email sent by IRTA to all of the teams:

Dear All,

I hope that you, your staff and your families are keeping well during these difficult times.

You will have seen that, unfortunately, Dorna have already had to announce the postponement of several events and, with some, it has not been possible to confirm a new date for the events.

Dorna are working hard to secure new dates but are constrained by not being able to forecast when governments will reduce restrictions on travel or mass gatherings of people. Accordingly, one option being investigated by Dorna is the possibility of holding some events “behind closed doors”. This means no spectators and also no team guests, including sponsors with permanent passes.

To get government approval for such events it would be necessary to indicate to governments the number of people required to put on an event and, most likely, their nationalities and from which country they would be arriving.

We are attaching a form which I ask you to complete and return as an Email attachment as soon as possible. You should list on that form details of the very minimum staff that you would need at a closed-door event in Europe to safely run the races.

As only working trucks will be admitted you do not need to include hospitality staff or workers involved in their setting up. Other staff not deemed vital would include PR and media staff and perhaps some management personnel. Many of these could operate from their home bases whilst maintaining live links with staff at the circuit.

We have indicated on the forms that number of staff that we consider to be the absolute maximum for the class. That should not be taken as an “allowance” and you should enter your own, realistic figures.

We are obviously aware that in the Moto3 and Moto2 classes some teams operate with riders in both classes. Those teams should please complete a form for each class.

If you have any queries on this matter then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best regards,

Mike Trimby

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