Aerial view of the Circuito de Navarra – according to US boy Garrett Gerloff, the angled course has more of a go-kart track and drivers like “Magic Michael” van der Mark don’t like it at all, especially because of their many first-course passages.

The incredible price explosion using the example of Navarra WorldSBK

Some WorldSBK heroes could hardly believe their eyes on their first ride on this route. Quite a few of them find the course in the Rioja area questionable as a World Championship course. There were even voices that, like Most, describe the track as unworthy of a world championship run. Nevertheless, a WSBK meeting will take place here on the penultimate weekend in August, which is quite something. After the dangerous route in the Czech Republic, for which the ticket prices were astronomical compared to other Superbike World Cup events such as Assen, the people in charge of Navarra are now going one better. While the prices for three days of standing room are still acceptable, tickets for the main grandstand cost over 150 euros. This is more than at most MotoGP events, and simply usury. But it can be even more insane, namely if you want to go to the paddock, you pay 350 (in words three hundred and fifty) euros per person. Jerez de la Frontera is also in Spain and there it cost just over 40 euros in 2019, with free choice of the grandstand seat and including paddock access. Assen was hardly more expensive two years ago, either.

The Baron de Ley winery is located around 20 km south of the Circuito de Navarra – from here comes a drop that is incredibly inexpensive in view of its high quality and sensationally good for lovers of Spanish wines, for which you pay well under 10 euros in the local supermarket. Even at vinos.de, this noble, but inexpensive wine hardly costs more. We would rather suggest saving the 350 euros for a VIP ticket and investing in over 30 bottles of this wonderfully good wine. Even drops such as El Meson, Baritone and many more from the Rioja area need not shy away from comparison.

Spielberg’s example proves that things can be more modest if necessary

At the Styrian Grand Prix, it was noticed that the grandstand seats were anything but sold out. The organizer of the double race at the Red Bull Ring seemed to have speculated a lot. Despite the unlimited number of spectators, the Moto3 race took place in front of just 26,000 spectators, according to official information. That is only about an eighth of the numbers from before the pandemic, and the disappointment about it must have been limitless. But what is particularly interesting is the reaction to it. At the beginning of June we were still wondering about the horror prices for a 3-day ticket of almost 169 euros, two months later these are now being offered for less than 100 EUR. Apparently, the need made the organizer more modest after the first GP weekend, or shortly before it. It’s hard to imagine what’s going on in the minds of buyers two months ago for almost twice as much.

The start-finish straight in Spielberg with the Moto3 starting grid and in the background after turn 1 almost empty grandstands at 17 degrees Celsius and a wet track after previous rain. The price increase of over 50 percent compared to two years ago definitely did not work, and only a fraction of the number of visitors expected by the organizer came.

MotoGP Misano knocks out the bottom

At Valentino Rossi’s last race in his home country, the prices went through the roof. For Saturday and Sunday you pay between 185 and 325 euros and nothing goes below 190 for just the day of the race. In the homeland of pizza and mafia, you don’t seem to have any scruples. Presumably, a maximum of “only” 23,000 spectators are allowed, and they will now be asked to pay accordingly. The corona pandemic cannot be used as an excuse for this price insanity. It remains to be seen whether it will work out for the organizer. Misano, along with Mugello and Brno, was one of the three most expensive MotoGP organizers worldwide in 2019. It will be interesting to see if and how Valentino Rossi’s resignation will affect the incredible prices in Italy in the next few years. Until before the pandemic, Imola and Misano were the front-runners in WorldSBK and the tickets already cost several times that of Assen, Aragon and Jerez.

The effects of the price doubling in Imola for WorldSBK from 2018 to 2019 photographed by us near the Curva Tosa shortly before the Superpole Race in May. Incidentally, not one of these gentlemen is on a particularly inexpensive vehicle.
How the pictures look alike – spectators at the Berlin Avus race track in 1933 – this picture does not come from us, of course, but from our archive.

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