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Carlos Checa’s World Superbike season is over. The former champion had a massive crash during free practice on Friday morning in Istanbul, and was immediately diagnosed with contusions on his chest and a suspected fractured left scaphoid.

Those injuries were enough to keep him out of the race, but upon examination back in Spain, he was also found to have suffered a fractured pelvis. That injury means Checa is forced to miss the rest of the 2013 World Superbike season.

Despite the fact that the World Superbike series kicks off on Sunday, the provisional calendar is still very much in a state of flux. Rumors emanating from the WSBK paddock, gathered at Phillip Island for the 2013 season opener, suggest that major changes could stilll take place to the calendar.

The biggest change is that the UK round, set for Silverstone on 4th August, could be dropped altogether, and replaced with a round in Turkey, at the spectacular Istanbul Park Circuit in mid-September.

The rumors, reported by German-language website Speedweek, and confirmed by other WSBK sources, state that Silverstone is to be dropped because the circuit cannot afford to pay the sanctioning fee previously agreed with Infront, and now being demanded by Dorna.

Crowd numbers at Silverstone for World Superbikes were always low, in part because the flat nature of the circuit made viewing difficult, and in part due to relatively high ticket prices, which meant that ticket sales did not generate sufficient revenue to cover the circuit’s costs.

Ever since the Great East Japan Earthquake, there’s been a great deal of speculation in the MotoGP paddock about the status of the Japanese GP. Although postponed until October, the reality that the Motegi circuit will be able to safely host a MotoGP event is still dubious in many minds, and accordingly names of alternate venues have been banded about as replacements for the Japanese round. At the top of the list has been Istanbul, which last hosted MotoGP back in 2007.

Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta has seemingly put the kibosh on the Turkish GP taking over for the Twin Ring Circuit though, saying that if the Japanese GP cannot be undertaken, the round would be dropped altogether from the MotoGP calendar. Such an action would leave only 17 stops for MotoGP’s racing season, instead of the customary 18 rounds.