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Dorna Motor Sports has announced a new race series aimed promoting young racers and helping them start their racing careers.

The new race league is called the FIM MiniGP World Series, and it is a novel approach to finding young racing talent, ages 10 to 14, around the globe.

The concept is simple: Dorna and the FIM have created a standardized racing format that clubs at the national, regional, and continental levels can adopt, which  creates a level playing field for young racers to make their mark.

The cancellation of the MotoGP test at Sepang – a result of the state of emergency imposed by the Malaysian government in response to rising numbers of cases of COVID-19 in the country – threw a spanner in the works for the MotoGP teams preparing for the start of the 2021 season.

Losing days of testing meant less time for the MotoGP rookies to acclimatize to the new class, and less track time to gather data for the coming season.

To address this issue, Dorna and IRTA announced that there will be an additional test in Qatar at the beginning of March. In addition to the original test scheduled for March 10th – 12th, there will be three more days of testing a five days earlier.

Earlier this summer, we wrote about the efforts of the Voxan brand to break the land-speed record for an electric motorcycle.

The company’s plans included the services of six-time world champion Max Biaggi, and a land-speed record course on the Salar de Uyuni salt flat in Bolivia. That was, of course, until the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Having to relocate their plans to the Châteauroux Airfield ‘Marcel Dassault’ in France, last week Biaggi set not just one FIM record, but 11 of them, on the Voxan Wattman electric motorcycle.

Yamaha has been punished for an infringement of the MotoGP technical rules at the opening race of the 2020 MotoGP season at Jerez, and at the same time, their riders have dodged a bullet.

After the infringement was finally uncovered, the FIM Stewards decided to deduct points from Yamaha in the manufacturers championship, and the Monster Energy Yamaha and Petronas Yamaha SRT teams have had points taken away in the teams championship.

But crucially for the 2020 MotoGP riders championship, no penalty was given to Fabio Quartararo, Maverick Viñales, or Franco Morbidelli. That means that the standings in what everyone regards as the most important championship, the riders championship, are unchanged.

Two things can be said about Spa-Francorchamps. One is that the Belgian track is one of the most iconic race circuits in Europe, and the other is that it is one of the most harrowing race courses anywhere in the world.

It is for the second reason that motorcycles do not race there at the international level, and it is for the first reason that it is a great shame that they do not. Things are about to change, however.

When MotoGP announced that it was adding a 15th round to its 2020 calendar, it was not exactly the best-kept secret in the MotoGP paddock that the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve in Portimão would get the nod.

Today, that news becomes official, with the Portuguese GP set to take place November 20th to 22nd.

Of course, in  a season that has seen a bevy of cancelations and postponements because of the coronavirus outbreak, any race schedule has to be taken with a modest amount of uncertainty and skepticism.

Fabio Quartararo and Sergio Garcia have both been handed penalties for using unauthorized machines to practice on track. The pair have been punished by being forced to miss the first 20 minutes of FP1 when action resumes on Friday.

The two were punished for separate incidents, Garcia for riding at Aragon in June, Quartararo for riding at Paul Ricard in the same month.

Two unnamed riders have been caught infringing the Grand Prix testing and practice regulations.

In a press release issued today, the FIM announced that breaches of the rules had been reported, which would be investigated during hearings to be held at the (re)opening of MotoGP at Jerez, on July 19th.

Though neither the names nor the specific infraction were mentioned in the press release, the wording of the announcement makes clear that the incident involves either Moto2 or Moto3 riders, and that they are accused of having used bikes that were not eligible to be used for training.

After last week’s MotoGP calendar, this week sees the release of another schedule. Today, the FIM published the provisional calendar for the WorldSBK series for the rest of this year, and also announced some big changes to the schedule of the weekend.

It is a very provisional calendar. Six rounds are confirmed – insofar as anything can be confirmed during the pandemic, as they are subject to cancellation or change should governments impose new restrictions – with four rounds in Spain, one in Portugal, and one in France.

Two rounds are still subject to confirmation, at San Juan Villicum in Argentina, and at Misano in Italy. There are three further rounds on the schedule without a date. A round in the UK at Donington Park, the Dutch round at Assen, and a race at Qatar.

There is a plan for the 2020 MotoGP season. With the COVID-19 outbreak receding all across Europe, Dorna has been given a second chance at setting a calendar for the 2020 MotoGP season.

The newly published calendar will see 13 races held at circuits in Europe in the first instance, with the possibility of four overseas races being tacked on at the end of the year, if conditions permit.

The calendar is explictly still provisional, subject to local rules and regulations concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.