Earlier this week, the cancellation of the MotoGP Kazakhstan GP was announced. Initially scheduled for June, the Sokol round had to be postponed due to April floods in Central Asia. The solution found was to reschedule it for September 20 to 22 – dates originally allocated to the India GP, which was also canceled. Previously, the Argentina GP had been canceled as well.
That makes three rounds canceled in just one year. Since the pandemic, this situation has been recurring in MotoGP for various reasons. Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna, warned SPEEDWEEK.com: ‘It’s very complex. Last year, Formula 1, which has excellent management, more security, and is making very good progress, canceled two GPs. We should get used to it’.
In F1, the 2023 season saw the cancellations of the China GP (still due to the pandemic’s effects in the country) and the Emilia Romagna GP due to floods in the region a few weeks before the event. In MotoGP, Dorna plans to mitigate cancellations by requiring organizers to make a monetary deposit, which they will forfeit if the GP is canceled.
However, Ezpeleta made a caveat: ‘If you become too restrictive and say no, I won’t do anything to prevent this from happening to me, you really grow. Of course, we take certain risks, which we try to minimize. Obviously, we don’t like canceling, but what we like even less is when races are poorly organized’.