A huge fire has destroyed a large part of the facilities at the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit in Argentina, home to the Argentinean round of MotoGP.
The fire started in the early hours of Saturday morning, and damaged the building housing the pit garages. Fortunately there were no casualties.
According to a statement released by Héctor Farina, Director General of the circuit, the fire destroyed the pit complex, the media center, the VIP rooms, and Race Control.
For the first time since 2014, a rider prepares to defend the MotoGP title for the first time in their career.
But, the circumstances in which Joan Mir is preparing for the 2021 season are very different to who Marc Márquez prepared after he won his first MotoGP title back in 2013.
The Covid-19 pandemic means no mass celebrations, no jetting around the world to have his photo taken with sponsors, to fulfill the requirements in his contract. No going directly from the previous season into testing, with barely a break in between.
Joan Mir has had plenty of time at home, with media engagements few and far between, a necessary consequence of the pandemic. He has been in his home in Andorra, training, working to get ready for the coming season.
Earlier this week, he spoke to a group of journalists about the year ahead. And here, too, he reaped the benefits of the pandemic: he participated in a large-scale media event from comfort of his home.
No time wasted traveling, just change into a team shirt, sit down behind a laptop, and fire up the webcam.
He was as professional in the zoom debrief as he has been in every aspect of his career. And the zoom debrief was as well-organized and smoothly-run as we have come to expect from the Suzuki Ecstar team.
It’s hardly a surprise that Joan Mir won the 2020 MotoGP title.
Episode 184 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one again brings us into the MotoGP paddock, with an open question on who has the most to prove in the 2021 season.
To broach that topic, we have Neil Morrison, Steve English, David Emmett, and Adam Wheeler on the mics, as they discuss the in’s and out’s on this prelude to the start of the motorcycle racing season.
Just hours after the Brno circuit announced that it would not be hosting World Championship motorcycle racing, another MotoGP round bites the dust.
In this case, though, it is merely a postponement for a year, with the Thai government announcing that the Buriram round of MotoGP will not take place in 2021, but that the five year contract has been shifted along a year.
According to a story in the Bangkok Post. the Thai government has reached an agreement with Dorna to skip the race in 2021, but to extend their contract to host MotoGP to cover the period from 2022 to 2026.
The 2021 MotoGP season continues to be a fluid affair.
With the Argentina and Austin rounds already canceled (technically postponed, but with no real chance of them actually taking place), it is now clear that Brno will not host a MotoGP round in 2021. And there are more signs of a shake up coming.
Episode 183 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one brings us back into the MotoGP paddock, with a special show that takes questions from our listeners.
On the mics, we have Neil Morrison, Steve English, and Adam Wheeler, who dive into the topics that you have provided, which makes for some interesting conversations.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt the MotoGP calendar. The second and third rounds of MotoGP, at Termas de Rio Hondo in Argentina on April 11th and at the Circuit Of The Americas on April 18th have been officially postponed.
In their place, Qatar will host back-to-back races at the Losail International Circuit on March 28th and April 4th, and reserve circuit Autódromo do Algarve at Portimao will host a race on April 18th.
Though officially only postoponed, the Argentina and Austin rounds are almost certain to be canceled, a move which had long been expected.
Rain forced the WorldSBK teams assembled at Jerez to abandon the test planned for the past two days.
Though, the weather was better on Thursday than it had been on Wednesday, the track took a long time to dry out, and with only 8 days of testing for the season, the teams decided to call off the test instead.
The cancellation of the MotoGP test at Sepang – a result of the state of emergency imposed by the Malaysian government in response to rising numbers of cases of COVID-19 in the country – threw a spanner in the works for the MotoGP teams preparing for the start of the 2021 season.
Losing days of testing meant less time for the MotoGP rookies to acclimatize to the new class, and less track time to gather data for the coming season.
To address this issue, Dorna and IRTA announced that there will be an additional test in Qatar at the beginning of March. In addition to the original test scheduled for March 10th – 12th, there will be three more days of testing a five days earlier.
The MotoGP Test at Sepang, due to be held from 19th – 21st of February, has been canceled, Dorna announced today.
The King of Malaysia, at the request of the Malaysian government, has declared a state of emergency in Malaysia, which is due to last until August 1st.
The state of emergency has been declared in an attempt to stem the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to spread around the world.
We have already talked about how Sylvain Guintoli is a keen asset for the Suzuki MotoGP program, and a leading contribution in the development of the Suzuki GSX-RR race bike.