The start of the 2021 WorldSBK season will have to wait for another two weeks.
The Dutch round of WorldSBK, scheduled to take place at the TT Circuit Assen from April 23-25th, has been pushed back to July 23-25th due to COVID-19 restrictions. The season will now start at Estoril, on the weekend of May 9th.
The MotoGP calendar has been changed again due to the ongoing outbreak of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. This time, it is the Argentina round of the series, due to be held in Termas de Rio Hondo on April 19th, which has been postponed.
The race has now been set for November 22nd, the date Valencia was moved to in yesterday’s updated calendar, with Valencia now slated for November 29th.
Racing at the Bonneville Salt Flats has been a tumultuous affair for 2015, with the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) forced to cancel its Speed Week event for the second year in a row, just to see the AMA now proclaim its Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials event a tentative “go” barring more weather in the Salt Lake City area.
One of the teams we hoped to see competing on the salt flats was Triumph, with its Triumph Rocket III Streamliner and Guy Martin at its helm. With Guy Martin’s savage crash at the Ulster GP leaving the Lincolnshire-man with a broken back, sternum, and ribs, Triumph has had to re-think its 2015 land-speed record program.
As such, Triumph is calling this year a wash, and will return to the salt flats in 2016, where hopefully conditions, and more so fate, will allow the team to race towards its 400 mph goal.
Having seen too many practice sessions affected by the weather, Clerk of the Course Gary Thompson was left with little choice but to postpone what would have been the first race of the Isle of Man TT, taking the opinion that the riders hadn’t had enough time on the Mountain Course — a point-of-view that many riders shared.
As such, Saturday’s scheduled Dainese Superbike Race will be pushed back to 2:15pm on Sunday (local time). However this does not mean that Saturday’s sidecar race will be altered, and remains scheduled for 2pm. This means that the sidecars will serve as the opening race for the 2013 Isle of Man TT.
The inaugural round of World Superbikes in India is under serious threat, which leaves Dorna facing severe problems just months after taking over the running of the WSBK series. Bureaucracy, customs formalities, and import bonds threaten to see the race, scheduled to be held on March 10th at the Buddh International Circuit near New Delhi in India, either postponed or called off indefinitely, according to reports over on GPOne.
While Icelandic volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajökull grounded flights all over the world (most noticeably in northern Europe), the impact to motorcycling seemed negligible. However with the Japanese GP at Motegi scheuled for this weekend, Dorna quickly realized that teams would not be able to leave European airspace to setup camp in Japan for the next round of MotoGP. As such Dorna and the IRTA have postponed the Japanese GP, and rescheduled the event for Octoberd 3rd, between the Aragon and Malaysian GP’s.