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Covid-19 continues to hold centre-stage and call the shots, so much so that Dorna is being forced to revise its plans. Just to give an example, this week the World Superbike organizer published a third update to the 2021 calendar, which is still provisional.
In this situation of full pandemic, with infections on the rise and respective variants arriving from all over Europe, no one wants to run the risk of making any definitive announcements, only to be forced to abruptly make U-turns.
So it’s a question of navigating on sight, trying to take one step at a time and trying to hold rounds on favourable or at least well-known grounds, where it is easy to move or react. As a result, Spain is fertile ground in all respects for Dorna, where the organizer manages to liaise without too much difficulty with the various local and national authorities. In the 2021 World SBK calendar, just to give an example, there are currently four of the thirteen rounds scheduled in Spain and two in Portugal. In fact, the confirmed rounds so far include Aragon, which will raise the curtain on the season, in addition to Barcelona and Jerez and now up to the new entry, the Circuit of Navarra. With the addition of two rounds in Portugal…
On the other hand, the circuits have made themselves clear and they do not intend to take any steps back: without spectators the gates of the racetracks will not open. So now we have Assen asking for a postponement of its round to the summer, to which has been added Estoril, just to name a couple of examples. In other cases, however, they will have to try and accept the situation, such as Misano, which hosts the MotoGP race in addition to Superbike.
However, not everyone is inclined to meet the organizers half-way, such as Imola, which saw fit not to put renew the contract, preferring the fascination - and the income - from Formula 1. How can you blame them? It is a pity, however, not to see the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, the iconic track of the production-based series, which over the years had recorded some of the highest crowd figures among all the circuits in the calendar.
Covid has certainly upset the applecart in a big way, so much so that the Superbike World Championship runs the risk of becoming more and more a Spanish Championship or a sort of CEV 2.0. The situation is more or less the same also in the MotoGP World Championship, where at the moment there are four rounds in Spain and one in Portugal. In this regard, the possibility of back-to-backs as happened last year on tracks such as Jerez, Aragon or Valencia cannot be ruled out. Which could lead to at least seven Grands Prix on Iberian soil...
Superbike and MotoGP therefore are heading in the direction of a Eurocentric calendar, with a particular nod to Spain and Portugal, while everyone waits for vaccination on a world scale to bring us back to a normality that for the moment still seems to be a distant memory. Rounds like Australia, Malaysia, Japan, even America or Argentina, therefore remain a distant mirage more than they already are. For this reason Dorna is considering vaccinating the entire paddock. It just remains to be seen if journalists are included…
