Turn 10 in Misano called Tramonto photographed by us on the former Autodromo di Misano, renamed after Marco Simoncelli. Now there is the second double race of the season in the second Corona year.

Continuation of the planning chaos of the Dorna: Misano 2 instead of Sepang GP

When FIM and Dorna published the calendar for this year in early November 2020, many realists shook their heads in amazement. It was a planning that could hardly be topped in terms of ignorance and myopia, because in the second Corona year, many problems regarding travel restrictions were still to be expected. Actually exactly like the nine months before. A hail of cancellations followed, with the official test in Sepang first and now, as expected, the Malaysian GP as a result of the pandemic after the Grand Prix of Thailand and Japan. According to the original plan, the Phillip Island weekend in Australia should have taken place on October 24, 2021. The Sepang World Cup round was later postponed to this date instead, and now it is a new Misano 2 with variant three of the chaos planning.

MotoRacers Zippy and the many people in yellow in Sepang in autumn 2007 – the fans in Asia will have to completely forego a farewell performance for Valentino Rossi in his last season and the US GP in Austin is still highly questionable.

The double Rossi gala on his doorstep
While Petronas withdrew as sponsor of the Sepang Racing Team as of next season, the reason for this became clear after the fact that the Malaysian GP was cancelled for the second time after 2020. Without such a potent main sponsor and a driver like Valentino Rossi and Frankie Morbidelli, the best private team of the previous year is likely to be relegated to second or third class. While the elimination of the race in Sepang is tantamount to a catastrophe for MotoGP fans from Asia, the Italians and their idols are happy on the other hand. As the new official father, Valentino will be able to give a double gala in front of his home audience and be able to say goodbye to his fans in his own country only 15 minutes away from his home town of Tavullia in September and the second half of October.

Valentino Rossi at the Misano press conference in September 2020 – after the previous year, the old master can enjoy a double race on his doorstep for the second time in a row. In the first run he narrowly missed the podium in fourth place and a crash followed in the second.

The new combined calendar from MotoGP and WorldSBK

As usual with us, the clashes between MotoGP and the near-series World Cup are shown in red. Due to the pandemic and the planning chaos of FIM and Dorna, sponsorship funds literally imploded in numerous teams in the Superbike World Championship. The first victim was the fast Frenchman Loris Baz, who is competing in MotoAmerica this season because his team Ten Kate Yamaha could not raise the budget for another WSBK season. Many more followed and with Eugene Laverty, the thirteen-time winner of the series was not spared. Already in Assen, the Northern Irishman was allegedly missing due to an upcoming “restructuring” of his Italian team. The notorious unlucky fellow in Navarra will still not be able to compete on his BMW next weekend. An endlessly long reorganization of RC Squadra Corse should not be the real reason for this. The dubious group had already been absent from the Barcelona test in spring for flimsy reasons, which made it clear early on that BMW and Eugene had caught a more than unreliable partner.

Eugene Laverty photographed by us in BuriRam Thailand at the 2018 autograph session – at that time still running for Milwaukee Aprilia, he later switched to GoEleven Ducati and in 2020 to BMW. This season as a privateer, he showed some good results despite hardly any test practice, but his return to the paddock is more than questionable.

Unless otherwise stated, this applies to all images (© MotoGP).