2023-09-08 18:43:12
Dorna will reveal the provisional calendar of MotoGP 2024 before traveling to India, and if the rumors that are being heard this weekend in the Misano paddock come true, everything indicates that it will be the longest and most ambitious season in the history of the championship with a total of 22 grands prixthat is to say, 44 races for the MotoGP riders including the Sprint Race that takes place on Saturdays.
In principle, it seems that Dorna will maintain the 21 races that were initially scheduled for this 2023, and that includes the Kazakhstan GPa test that should have been held last July and that was finally canceled at the last minute as the improvement and reconditioning works of the Sokol Circuit had not been completed on time, a track that will continue on the calendar in 2024 and that was, together with India, one of the two great novelties for this year.
If in 2023 the World Cup calendar had 21 races scheduled -finally 20 due to the loss of Kazakhstan-, rumors suggest that 2024 will see the arrival of another new appointment to reach a total of 22 grand prix, and the return of the four Spanish races sounds loud, thus avoiding – at least temporarily – the rotation of Iberian Grand Prix that Dorna launched this year, leaving out the Motorland Aragón Circuit.
Carmelo Ezpeleta himself recalled a few days ago, in the run-up to the Catalunya Grand Prix, that alternating races in the Iberian Peninsula -Jerez, Valencia, Montmeló, Aragón and Portimao- does not necessarily have to be activated every year, and addressing the possibility that Catalonia repeats again in 2024 -also in September-, the Dorna boss was favorable to it.
“This is something that people have misunderstood: they don’t need to alternate.”, Ezpeleta said of Dorna’s plans for next year’s Spanish races. “They can alternate, which does not mean they have to. A great prize in Catalonia in 2024? Most likely, yes. We want Barcelona to do five years”, added the Spanish manager in reference to the contract that guarantees the holding of the Catalan GP until 2026, signed in November 2021.
Recently, from the management of Motorland Aragón, Manuel Blasco, assured in an interview offered to the newspaper La Comarca “To have started a telephone conversation with Dorna, and in the coming weeks we want to meet with them to analyze the contract and the possibilities that exist to extend it (…) I have to know from Dorna the commitments they have with other circuits regarding the Iberian rotation. “One of the issues that I want to contrast is that Jerez has gone on its own and has guaranteed itself two consecutive editions,” hoping not to be left out of the calendar next year.
The only track that, at the moment, is doubtful for 2024 is Portimao; The MotoGP riders want those responsible for the Portuguese circuit work on a profound improvement of their escapes, and that could lead to the Algarve track taking a sabbatical from the championship to return to the calendar again in 2025.
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And after the remodeling works that Losail is about to conclude, It seems that the Qatar Grand Prix will regain its number one positionthus giving the starting signal to a long 2024 calendar that, one more year, should end in Valencia with the month of November already advanced.
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