2016 MotoGP Provisional Calendar Updated

The FIM have released another provisional calendar for the MotoGP series, in response to yet another shake up of the F1 calendar by Bernie Ecclestone.

With F1 and MotoGP having an informal agreement not to have their dates clash, and with MotoGP losing out in terms of TV audience whenever they do, the MotoGP calendar released in September had too many conflicts with F1. As a result of those clashes, four races have now been moved to different dates.

The German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring has been shifted back a week to July 17th. Silverstone, scheduled to be held on the 17th, has been moved to the September 4th. The Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang has been moved from the start to the end of the Asia-Pacific triple header, and will now be run on October 20th. That shift means that the Valencia race has been pushed back a week, to November 13th.

The shifts in the calendar are all due to clashes. When F1 moved its Silverstone race to July 10th, having the Sachsenring on that date and MotoGP at Silverstone a week after F1 became untenable.

Several dates were proposed for Silverstone, with June 19th the favorite for a long time, but in the end, the race was moved back to the beginning of September.

That allowed the Sachsenring to be pushed back a week to avoid the F1 clash, but puts Silverstone up against F1 at Monza. The most likely scenario there is that the MotoGP race will be run at 3pm local time, which is after the F1 race at Monza has finished.

Sepang was the other date which was moved, to avoid a clash with F1 at Suzuka. Having two races in the same time zone made scheduling difficult, and so having Sepang after Phillip Island instead of before Motegi made it easier.

That means that Valencia had to be pushed back, to give the riders a chance to recover in time for the season finale.

The revised calendar does leave the schedule with some big gaps, and a fair few back-to-back races. There is a three-week hiatus between Barcelona and Assen, then another three weeks between Assen and Germany, before a four-week summer break.

August and September see two double headers, with Brno the week after Austria, then Misano a week after Silverstone. Another three week break follows after that, with the flyaway triple header to follow.

It is worth noting that the calendar is still marked as provisional. Two races – Jerez and Brno – are still subject to contract, with continual wrangling over the financing of those events. The irony of the two best-attended MotoGP races having the most problems raising the sanctioning fee is worthy of note.

Below is the press release with the new calendar for next year:

2016 Provisional Calendar for the FIM MotoGP World Championship, Updated November 2nd (Changes in bold):

* Evening Race
** Subject to contract

Photo: © 2015 Tony Goldsmith / www.tonygoldsmith.net – All Rights Reserved

This article was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.