Carmelo Ezpeleta on GP cancellations: “You have to get used to it”

Earlier this week, the cancellation of the Kazakhstan MotoGP GP was announced. Originally scheduled for June, the Sokol round had to be postponed due to the floods that occurred in Central Asia in April. The solution found was to reschedule it from September 20 to 22 – dates originally assigned to the Indian GP, ​​which was also cancelled. Previously, the Argentine GP had also been cancelled.

That’s three races cancelled in just one year. Since the pandemic, this situation has been repeated in MotoGP for various reasons. Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta warned SPEEDWEEK.com: “It is very complex. Last year, Formula 1, which has excellent management, more safety and is making very good progress, cancelled two GPs. We have to get used to it.‘.

In F1, the 2023 season saw the cancellation of the Chinese GP (again due to the effects of the pandemic in the country) and the Emilia Romagna GP due to flooding in the region a few weeks before the event. In MotoGP, Dorna plans to mitigate cancellations by requiring organizers to pay a deposit, which they will lose if the GP is canceled.

However, Ezpeleta expressed a reservation: “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, you take certain risks, which you try to minimize. Obviously, we don’t like to cancel, but what we like even less is when races are poorly organized.‘.