Along with its third iteration of the 2013 MotoGP Championship’s provisional calendar, Dorna has issued a statement regarding the removal of the Argentinian round from the racing schedule for next year. In its brief statement about the “non-inclusion,” Dorna cites the Spanish government’s recommendation in June of this year, which said that Repsol teams and riders should not travel to Argentina for safety reasons.

Dorna also states that on November 20th, the Spanish government rescinded this “no travel” recommendation; however, because the deadline for the calendar was November 18th, the MotoGP rights holder had no choice but to cancel of the Argentinian GP. Read in between the lines as you will, the press release is after the jump.

True to the rumors heard in the MotoGP paddock, the Argentinian GP has been canceled by Dorna. Scheduled as the second round for the 2013 MotoGP Championship, the loss of the round in Argentina means that the season-opener at Qatar has been pushed further back into the year, and is now slated to be held on April 7, 2013.

The Austin GP is now the second round of the series, and will continue to be held on April 21, 2013. The full provisional 2013 MotoGP calendar is after the jump, and now supersedes the previously published provisional calendar. Click here for Dorna’s statement as to why the round was cancelled.

Even before the Argentinian round of MotoGP had been officially added to the calendar, the race has been in doubt. The race, provisionally scheduled to take place on April 14th next year at the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit, has been caught in the crossfire between the Argentinian government and Repsol, over the former nationalizing Repsol YPF, the Argentinian arm of the Spanish petroleum giant.

Now, it looks as if the race the race is about to be canceled officially. According to Damià Aguilar, MotoGP reporter for Catalunya Radio, the Argentinian GP is to taken off the calendar, with an official announcement due to be made on Friday.

The cancellation of the race will leave a large gap between the first race of the season at Qatar, scheduled for March 31st, and the second race at Austin, Texas, booked three weeks later on April 21st.  To close up that gap, Qatar will be moved up a week and be held on April 7th instead, leaving just two weeks between the first two races.

The FIM has issued a revised version of the 2013 MotoGP calendar. The new calendar is only a minor update to the initial calendar issued on September 21st, with only one real change, the switching of the Sachsenring to a week earlier. That move was forced on the FIM, as Formula One had scheduled the Grand Prix of Germany at the Nurburgring for the same date. Holding an F1 race and a MotoGP race in the same country and on the same date was not a viable situation, and so the Sachsenring race was moved.

The other update to the calendar was not a change, but a confirmation. The Grand Prix of the Americas has been confirmed as taking place on April 21st, at the brand new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. That had been widely expected, but could not be confirmed until contracts were signed. The continuing dispute between the Circuit of the Americas and Kevin Schwantz over the rights to organize the Austin round of MotoGP will not affect the scheduling of the race.

At Magny-Cours this weekend, World Superbike released its provisional calendar for the 2013 WSBK Championship. Subject to some change, maybe more so now that Dorna is in charge of things, the big changes to the 2013 calendar over this season is the addition of a round in India, as well as the American round moving from Miller Motorsports Park to Laguna Seca.

World Superbike returns to Russia again for 2013, helping the series branch out a bit from the Western Europe centrality. Along that same vein, both Misano and Brno are absent from the 2013 calendar, with the second race in June still to be announced.

We would expect Brno to get filled-in at this slot, since the Eastern Europe circuit has the right geography, solvency, and attendance support when compared to the Italian track. However, as always, time will tell. The 2013 World Superbike Provisional Calendar for 2013 is after the jump.

The Texas round of MotoGP is to go ahead. The race, due to take place at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas has been confirmed for April 21st, 2013, with Dorna and the Circuit of the Americas issuing a joint press release announcing the date. The race in Texas was one of the two races marked as being subject to confirmation, but today’s announcement leaves just the race in Argentina and the Jerez round to be confirmed.

Confirmation of the race comes despite the ongoing legal action between Kevin Schwantz and the Circuit of the Americas. That legal action should have no effect on the race actually taking place, however. The lawsuit filed by Schwantz against COTA will take some time to actually get in front of a judge, and the most probable outcome is that money will change hands to settle the deal, either one way or another.

The signing of the Austin contract leaves just Argentina and Jerez to be sorted out. The Jerez deal is a question of paperwork and, most likely, money; it is inconceivable that Dorna would pull out of the deal to host the first European round of the season in Jerez, where it has been for several years now.

Argentina, on the other hand, is far more complex: there are reports from local Argentine sources that work on the facilities at the circuit is slow, but the bigger problem is political. The expropriation of Repsol’s Argentinian subsidiary Repsol YPF by the Argentine government has deeply upset the Spanish oil giant, and Repsol has threatened not to allow the teams it backs to attend the race, saying that they cannot be certain that their property will be safe, a claim which the local organizers have denied.

The full press release announcing the MotoGP race in Texas is after the jump.

Infront Motor Sports and the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca have agreed to a three-year contract, which sees World Superike racing returning to the coastal California circuit. The American round for the 2013, 2014, and 2015 WSBK seasons, Laguna Seca replaces Miller Motorsports Park, with this announcement, as the sole-destination for the premier production motorcycle racing class.

Returning back to Laguna Seca after an eight-year hiatus, Infront cites that Seca’s vital location near the motorcycle industry, as well as its rising attendance as the main reasons for the switch from Miller. However, we think US fans will agree though that Miller provided an excellent venue for WSBK, and that the World Superbike Championship could benefit from having more than one American-based round, especially considering how many stops on its calendar are still in Europe.

The provisional MotoGP calendar has taken a little longer than normal to appear. An initial calendar had been expected at Brno in late August, but no calendar was forthcoming at the Czech Grand Prix.

The next rumored date for the calendar to be released was the weekend of the Misano round of MotoGP, but once the paddock assembled at Misano, it became apparent it would emerge a few days later – we where then told by an IRTA representative that the calendar would be announced on Tuesday or Wednesday this week.

On Tuesday, the Austin Statesman newspaper reported that the calendar would be out on Friday, but the excessive enthusiasm of Loris Capirossi saw the former racer and current MotoGP safety advisor leak the 2013 calendar on his Twitter page on Thursday night.

Barcelona looks set to remain on the MotoGP calendar for the foreseeable future, despite concerns over the financial viability of the round. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo, Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta has confirmed that the contract, signed for five years in 2011, will be honored by both Dorna and the regional government of Catalonya, which helps fund the race.

Back in March, at the presentation of the Jerez round, Ezpeleta had stated that he expected there to be three Spanish rounds of MotoGP in 2013, with both Aragon and Jerez confirmed, and Barcelona and Valencia alternating. However, in the interview with Mundo Deportivo, Ezpeleta was less certain of the continuation of Jerez, as the agreement he had signed had been with the previous mayor of Jerez of the socialist PSOE party, and he had not yet spoken to the new mayor from the conservative PP party. However, Jerez, like Barcelona, has a five-year contract with Dorna to organize a MotoGP round, and Ezpeleta expect the race to go ahead.

Jerez is to remain on the MotoGP calendar for at least one more year. Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta announced the extension during the official presentation in Madrid of this year’s Spanish GP at the iconic Jerez circuit, stating that Jerez will stay on the calendar for 2013. He also confirmed that from next year, there will be just 3 races on the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal), with Jerez and Aragon certain to stay, while Barcelona and Valencia could alternate, as is currently being proposed for Formula 1. Meanwhile, the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril appears destined to disappear from the calendar.

Rumors surrounding the fate of the Jerez Grand Prix had been circulating for a while, with the circuit still in financial problems over non-payment of debts to the consortium that carried out remodelling work at the circuit back in 2001. It was widely expected that Jerez would be dropped from the calendar, but sources close to the circuit owners were confident of being able to continue. Though the official confirmation is only for 2013, the chances of the race remaining at the track for the next five years look very good.