Posts Tagged ‘Carmelo Ezpeleta’

About the 2024 MotoGP Calendar

September 30, 2023

Testing the limits of human endurance again, but more

After a cursory examination of the provisional 2024 MotoGP calendar, we are once again going to get all up in Carmelo Ezpeleta’s business. We thought (think) the 2023 calendar is brutal enough to get a few riders and crew members hospitalized. The Powers That Be took our comments to heart and produced a calendar for next year which is even worse.

22 rounds. Four back-to-back rounds. A late season Pacific flyaway with six rounds in seven weeks, including four hotties–India, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. Round 9 in central Asia–Kazakhstan, of all places. 12 European rounds and 10 outside Europe. 11 rounds before the summer break and 11 following. 44 races counting the Saturday Sprints.

Here’s a reference I’d wager NONE of you will understand. Rumor has it that there will be two additional rounds on the 2025 calendar, one in Irkutsk, the other in Kamchatka. Anyone?

For 2024, Lusail gets moved back to Round 1, followed by the annual demolition derby at Algarve in Portugal. After a week off comes the first back-to-back in Argentina and COTA. Then comes Jerez, followed by Le Mans. The second double of the year goes from Barcelona to Bologna. Then comes Sokol, which has two asterisks, designating it, once again, as the annual loss leader, The Round Most Likely To Get Cancelled. Teams get a week off to prepare for the third double in Assen and East Germany, followed by the summer break, during which everyone loses interest in motorcycle racing in general.

The back nine starts at Silverstone, then on to Austria. The last doubleheader of the year takes us from Aragon to Misano. Then the teams spend mid-September girding their loins for the dreaded and dreadful flyaways. In quick succession India, Indonesia and Japan. A week off to hydrate and spend time in the hyperbaric chamber. Then, boom, Phillip Island, Thailand and Malaysia. The last men standing will have a week to convalesce before the usual finale in Valencia.

We haven’t really gotten into the hard part of the 2023 calendar yet and the riders are begging for mercy. Aleix is not happy, Fabio is stressed out. The weather in India forced the truncation of races in all three classes, with only 16 riders even finishing the main event. Alex Marquez and Luca Marini ended the weekend in the hospital with fractures. The brolly girls were exhausted from fighting frizz all weekend. And it will hit the fan for real on 13 October when things get ginned up in Indonesia.

Whatever happened to the 18-round season? The occasional back-to-back? The three round Asian flyaway? Time to rest between qualifying on Saturday and the Sunday race, except for Assen? Inquiring minds want to know. These are our heroes out there getting their brains bashed in and having their life expectancies shortened in Ezpeleta’s incessant quest to overtake F-1 as the preeminent racing league in the world. Something’s gotta give.

Any of you planning to attend Round 9 please extend my warm regards to Borat’s sister.

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Posted in Dorna, FIM, Grand Prix Motorcycle Racing, Marc Marquez, Motegi, Moto, Moto2, Moto3, MotoGP | 3 Comments »

FT: Dorna in the Hands of Private Equity

February 14, 2019

© Bruce Allen

Click here for the full Financial Times article.

Capture

Dorna Sports, rights-holders to MotoGP and WSBK, is being passed around like a teenager in a mosh pit.

This corporate stuff, although largely irrelevant can, at times, prove vexing. The article suggests that MotoGP is a hot property these days with a bright future. Dorna is estimated to have earned about €500MM last year. But private equity is a very dirty business, some of whose practitioners earn a reputation as “vulture capitalists.”

One hopes that the private equity industry leaves MotoGP well enough alone. The amount of infrastructure at this point, by all parties concerned, is enormous. Big enough to affect balance sheets. This seems to show how enormous corporate monoliths like Yamaha can be threatened by these pissant  masters of leverage with no regard whatsoever for the content of the business itself. Parts is parts. Pieces parts. (That’s from an old 1970’s-80’s TV commercial for fried chicken. Find it on YouTube.)

Closer to home for some, the upcoming Brexit, most notably the so-called “No Deal,” will complicate matters for everyone in Europe, but especially in Britain, where an immediate recession is expected. This would compound the expected loss in attendance from fans in EU countries who would then have to go through the rigamarole of customs and etc. to attend, say, Silverstone. It will complicate the transfer of equipment in and out of Britain. Britons are hoarding food and calling up the national guard in anticipation of violence in the streets. The politicians are entwined in a death grip. The EU will not renegotiate. Something’s got to give.

When it does, let’s hope the shrapnel doesn’t catch MotoGP.

 

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Posted in Dorna, Grand Prix Motorcycle Racing, Moto, Moto2, Moto3, MotoGP, MotoGP 2019, World Super Bike | 2 Comments »