The Hungarian MotoGP, which was due to be held on September 19th, has been cancelled. Apparently the track is still not ready. You will recall that last year’s event was cancelled for exactly the same reason and the riders and teams got an unexpected mid-season holiday.
Well, no holiday this year. Instead of the Hungarian event, DORNA, the sport’s (or should I say BUSINESS’s) governing body, has scheduled a replacement, on the same weekend. Guess where ? Yep, got it in one. Spain.
This means that there will be 4, yes, that’s right, FOUR Grands Prix held in Spain this year. Now I’ve never been to Spain and I’m sure it’s very nice. And I know that, next to soccer, motorcycle road racing is the national religion of Spain. But FOUR premier events in the one, tiny country? Whatever for?
There’s really only one reason and it relates to money. Bet you’re surprised about that. MotoGp crowds in Spain are the biggest of any country’s events. So, run another meeting in Spain, keep the Spanish press (very influential) happy, and rake in a whole bucketload of extra revenue in the process.
If I was a member of the FIM’s board and my country had missed out on staging a MotoGp event this year, I’d be feeling pretty ticked-off right now.
In other racing news, dual WSS champion, Sebastien Charpentier has announced that he is quitting his team, effective immediately. Charpentier has returned to racing this year after a 2 year sabbatical but was clearly off the pace at PI finishing 13th out of 15 riders and nearly 2 minutes behind the race winner. Seb suffered a badly broken hip in an accident in his 2nd last season with Ten Kate Honda and, though he returned, he crashed badly again and seemed to have lost confidence. His team mate, Kenan Sofoglu, in the mean time, had hit a stellar patch and blew the returning Charpentier away.
The Press Release from the BE1 team simply says, “[Charpentier] has decided to withdraw from the championship after failing to demonstrate the pace which made him a two-time champion in the opening round of the season at Phillip Island in Australia.” A sad end to what was an excellent career.