MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

In the first part of this interview with Carlos Ezpeleta, Dorna's Chief Sporting Officer explained the political challenges of putting together a calendar for MotoGP. In the second half of our conversation, Ezpeleta discusses the contractual and logistical constraints on the MotoGP calendar. He gives us a peek into the 2024 calendar, and talks about balancing the input from the teams against the requests from the circuits.

Q: Coming to logistics, which is one of the most interesting factors. Races in Europe can only be held at a certain time. So for example, even though Finland was canceled, you could only race at the KymiRing in the summer. How do you slot all of that together? You’ve also got not just weather but also travel.

Carlos Ezpeleta: Yes. Let’s say that we know what events are going to be in the calendar for the year that we’re designing the calendar for. You start to sort of make a rough draft of that. Number one is your contractual obligations, which for example could be Qatar starting the calendar as the first race, and Valencia currently ending it. So, that’s pretty clear.

We also have things like I try to define the weekend of the first event, because that helps of course a lot for the calendar, and helps us reserve preseason testing, which is not easy because motorsport is growing and growing so circuits are more and more full. I speak to F1 and when I know a bit about their calendar and when they’ll start, we try not to start that weekend, although it gets very complicated. Then next year specifically, Ramadan starts and both F1 and us are starting in the Middle East So, that’s also a challenge now.

So, when you know when you can start, then you go back and you reserve your preseason tests for MotoGP. Next year as you know, Sepang [February 6th-8th] and Qatar [February 19th-20th] - Qatar for obvious reasons being logistics - and in Jerez for Moto2 and Moto3. So, that’s where we start.

Then we try to go to South and North America. Not in that particular order, I actually don’t know yet. There’s Easter there (March 31st, 2024), which is a weekend we try to avoid. People don’t usually watch that much sports, although in some places they do. It’s quite challenging there.

Then I sort of draw the calendar. Not to say things could not change, but you guys can work it out, more or less. The dates where you normally have Holland the last week of June, and Jerez starting at the beginning of May, and Le Mans after that. That block is kind of consistent.

Then there’s things like F1 happening in the same country, which we really, really try to avoid, which we do avoid. With F1 having now 23, 24 events, and us having 21 events, it’s getting very, very complicated. But you try to plan your clashes to be as least bad as possible, let’s say. From an audience point of view, and from a local point of view.

Then of course there’s the weather, which I personally try to respect as much as I can. Although sometimes you make quite a big change in the calendar for the weather to be better, and then something happens and the weather is terrible.

I think for example we were lucky this year in Portimão that the weather was actually much better than it was last year, a month and a half later. So, that was good.

Then like you said, there’s a number of countries where there's only a couple of months you can slot a race, and that country has F1 one month, so you go the other month. You try to fill in the spaces where there’s nothing there. Some promoters are very, very adamant that they want one weekend because there’s other things happening. So, now compared to the job years ago, now it has become very funneled.

Q: So actually the expanding calendar in both MotoGP and F1 is making the job even more complicated?

CE: Yes, correct. Then we always try to have a decent summer break. Then there’s things like, for example this year we have quite a strange calendar, as I’m sure many of the viewers have said. Last year, Mugello was very adamant that they didn’t want to clash with F1 specifically in Italy of course, but also in Monaco because it’s quite close. We separated Imola F1 from Mugello MotoGP as much as possible. Then unfortunately, Imola didn’t happen. Maybe if we were here that weekend, maybe we would have had a terrible race because of it. You never know. But, we had a three-week break.

Germany was also very hard to reschedule at that time, because they had already sold 30,000 tickets. This was in September last year. And Holland keep their traditional date. So at the end we have a three-week break with a three-week triple header after that, so it’s not ideal but it’s the way that it worked out.

Catalunya asked because their race with F1 was also pushed forward to be at the end of September, which was probably not an ideal day for Barcelona, but let’s see what happens during that next year.

So, quite a strange calendar this year. Actually people got some time off in May, which is good looking at the end of the season. Then because of Qatar not being able to be at the beginning of the season, we’re doing that on the way back from Southeast Asia, which from a logistical point of view works great.

Then having said that, we finished our European block in Misano halfway through September, and then we have to slot seven overseas races before heading into Valencia. Of course Valencia is already late, and it’s the latest it could be. So, if you look at the map and how we travel, there’s some certain races that you don’t want to come in after a consecutive race, and some races that you don’t want to leave to a consecutive race, because of just how the logistics are.

Q: Basically just because of freight concerns, being able to get your three planes from A to B?

CE: This year we’ve made quite a big job at reducing a lot our volume, specifically being able to transport the same material that we were transporting before much more efficiently in boxes and crates and transport boxes designed specifically for new aircraft, which is the Boeing 777, which consumes much less fuel which is better. So we’re transporting more efficiently. We are targeting to be transporting one 787, three 777s. One 787 because it has a higher main deck and some of our stuff doesn’t fit on the 777.

For example, Thailand we don’t land in Buriram, or in Argentina we don’t land in Termas because of the freight. So it takes quite a while. You can’t land at all the airports with these planes.

And then for example you have things like India, and the first event ever there, which we’re very excited about, but we don’t want to do that back-to-back. We wanted some time going into India. Then logistically and from an energy point of view it made a lot of sense to go to India on our way to Japan. Japan, the same promoter has an F1 event the week before so we couldn’t even change that.

But we’re actually going to Japan not that late, which I’m always concerned about for the weather. We go to Australia reasonably late, which I’m also concerned about because of the weather. We do have our joker weather races, like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, which we can slot more or less anywhere, and then back to Qatar and to Valencia.

It wasn’t an easy calendar last year to design, but we hope we get better than that next year.

Q: Next year should be a little bit better because you have Qatar at the start again. I understand that Qatar has made things just much more difficult because they’re completely rebuilding all of the circuit facilities and everything?

CE: Yeah. Honestly, at the end yes, but it would have meant maybe starting in Qatar before Portimão. Everybody loved starting back in Europe, but then I think nobody, not a single person would think there would be so many injuries. Maybe there’s not a scientific reason behind it, but having tested there and the track being so fast with all the rubber from MotoGP and Moto2 and Moto3, and the first weekend with the new format and everything, I don't think there was scientifically a reason for there to be more injuries or anything, but a lot of the riders have spoken to me about starting outside because the track won’t be that grippy. Which in some sense grip is safety but in other ways...

Q: It’s a narrow track. It’s not as wide as Qatar for example. Qatar is a really wide track, and just the layout of it and the fact that it flows more.

CE: I think a number of things meant that probably to overtake this year in Portimão, you had to take a bigger risk basically. Everybody was fast. Everybody was super hyped for the first race. If we would have been able to start at Qatar this year, we probably would have started in Qatar, gone to Portimão, and then it would have shaved one week off the end. That would have been the difference, basically.

Q: What’s more difficult - getting into a country or getting out of a country?

CE: Definitely the setup is always longer and you have customs and everything. So getting into a country is definitely harder. One thing that we haven’t mentioned about is time difference. That’s a big one. Last year we did Aragon, Japan, and you start off with seven hours.

Q: You lose half a day.

CE: Yes. When you’re moving the other way around, like Malaysia to Qatar or Qatar to Valencia, that’s much more achievable.

Q: How much input do the teams and the riders have into the calendar? Especially the teams because it’s the teams that have to get from A to B, and find accommodations for the race...

CE: The riders have input in terms of safety. Of course weather is not the most predictable thing a year in advance. Again, for me, there’s the weather part, there’s the logistical part and then there’s also the commercial part, being able to bring as many fans as possible to the circuit that weekend. Some weekends are better than others, clearly. So the riders do have that input in terms of the weather, etc. But a lot of the times there’s minimum things we can do already.

Then the teams, I speak a lot to Mike [Trimby, IRTA Secretary] and his feedback from the teams and to different team managers around. If some double headers overseas specifically are better than others, movement around Europe and trucks and the order you want to do those to be more efficient.

Then there’s the whole calendar disclosure issue and hotel reservations. People taking big bets on the reservations. So, back in the day, the teams used to get their calendar hours in advance of publication, and as things have sort of evolved and become bigger, that doesn’t happen anymore and they get it like five minutes before. If we’ve managed to keep it secret by then and it hasn’t leaked.

I do work with IRTA fairly in advance. Sort of share some drafts and there’s some feedback. Then the FIM publishes the calendar officially. It is FIM that publishes it. But that all happens in a 15-minute window. So, the teams get it, the FIM publishes it, and then Dorna publishes it. And that’s in basically 15 minutes.

There is some economic advantage in being able to know the calendar. Dorna actually doesn’t take advantage of that, because we know the calendar before anybody does. But the people in charge of travel in Dorna always kill me because they get the calendar when everybody else does. So we proudly do not take any advantage of that, but some people do because of the rumors, etc. They do make some bets and some reservations and sometimes that has come back to bite them when there’s been a date change.

As you know, there are some dates that are pretty well known to everybody. Although I must say, next year is a leap year and the whole thing might be a week back or one week forward. We’ll have to wait to see also.

Q: The calendar this year probably we’ll hear about it in September. Is it going to be early, late? I would expect to get it at the last race in Europe?

CE: I’d hope to get it in the last race in Europe. Then we always have a very fun IRTA commentary after that. It’s testing now because testing in the MotoGP class has become very restricted. But when we publish the calendar, then there’s IRTA commentary about testing and testing regulation and that goes on for a while, because everybody has their own agenda, of course. But I hope that halfway through September we’ll have the calendar.

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