Following the coronavirus-induced long delay to the 2020 championship, MotoGP has announced the start of its heavily-revised 2020 calendar that includes 13 European rounds.
The disrupted 2020 World Championship season is set to get underway at Jerez on July 19 with a second race on the same location just a week later. In order to distinguish the two events, the first round will be run under the name of the Grand Prix of Spain while the second one will be termed as the Grand Prix of Andalucía.
The third round of the revised calendar will be the Grand Prix of the Czech Rpublic at the Automotodrom Brno cirucit on August 9. That race will commence the sequence of three races on three consecutive weekends with the Red Bull Ring set to host two rounds on August 16 and 23.
That tight schedule will then feature a break of three weeks before the action resumes at Misano. The Marco Simoncelli circuit will host two races on two consecutive weekends on September 13 and 20. Bringing the second triple-header to an end, the Grand Prix of Catalunya will be staged on September 27.
October will see riders complete antoher triple-header. After the Grand Prix of France at the iconic Le Mans circuit, the field will make the trip to Motorland Aragón for two rounds on two consecutive weekends. For the month of November, two rounds have been scheduled with the Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo track set to host two races.
At the same time, the Promoter of the Italian Grand Prix has announced the cancellation of the event. CEO of the Mugello cirucit, Paolo Poli has confirmed that the event would return to the MotoGP calendar next year.
“Despite the communal effort made to find a practical solution, the impossibility of staging an event that is open to spectators, as well as the difficulties that have arisen from this exceptional situation, have not allowed us to find a new date for the Italian Grand Prix.”
MotoGP has also confirmed that the 2020 season will not finish later than the 13th of December. Despite to the uncertainty around a few events, the finalized calendar will have a maximum of 17 races including the Qatar Grand Prix that was only run with the presence of the Moto2 and Moto3 classes.
Considering the constantly changing COVID-19 developments, MotoGP has communicated that the eventual attendance of spectators are subject to the evolution of the pandemic and the approval of the corresponding governments and authorities.