MotoGP, Dorna weighing up possibility of two Grands Prix at Portimao due to Covid-19 increase in Spain

The Portimao round is clearly the big new addition to this season’s calendar, and it will see the MotoGP World Championship there in action from 20 to 22 November. In fact, expectations are already high for the Portuguese weekend, which in addition to entering the calendar will draw the curtains on a 2020 that we will never forget.

In the last few hours, the rumour has been spreading that Portimao could even host two MotoGP races. The situation linked to the spread of COVID-19 has in fact worsened in Spain, so much so that there have been as many as 16,000 infections between last Friday and today, with 1,800 yesterday.

Up to 15 days before the race, none of the rounds on the calendar is actually confirmed, as Ezpeleta told us on the weekend he was present at the SBK race in Jerez. Precisely for this reason, Dorna does not want to be caught unprepared should there be a further surge in cases, in particular with regard to Spain, which is set to host another five races from here until the end of the season (2 at Aragon, 2 at Valencia, 1 at Barcelona).

In order to complete the season, the organizer is therefore considering a double appointment in Portugal, as happened at the beginning of the season at Jerez or with Austria. At the moment the country has far fewer recorded cases and this could be a good card to play should the situation in the Iberian Peninsula worsen. Obviously, in order not to arrive unprepared, teams and riders will carry out a test first, as Danilo Petrucci also recently said, as was the case in Jerez after the long stop due to the lockdown.