MotoGP Waiting on Vaccine as Development Frozen Until 2022

The likelihood of the MotoGP World Championship getting underway any time soon was dealt yet another major blow, as the Italian and Catalan rounds of the 2020 season were indefinitely postponed.

The two races were supposed to take place at the end of May and beginning of June, but once again the novel coronavirus pandemic has ensured that the championship will have to reschedule these races, and they will likely not be the last. The next race on the calendar is Germany, which seems to be dealing with its coronavirus outbreak well, but that the German round of the 2020 MotoGP World Championship will take place on June 21 seems unlikely to say the least.

The Dutch TT is scheduled to take place a week after Germany, and it is feasible that any postponement of Assen would be equal to cancellation considering the Dutch TT’s tradition of being hosted on the final weekend of June (final Saturday of June until 2016). 

Adding to the uncertainty around the beginning of the MotoGP World Championship and the resumption of Moto2 and Moto3 are comments made by the Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta stating that the championship is unlikely to be run this year before there is a vaccine, since travel restrictions will likely remain in place until a vaccine is discovered, tested and distributed. 

It was travel restrictions that prevented the premier class from being in Qatar, so the concerns of Ezpeleta are well-founded, especially considering the quantity of the paddock personnel who live in Spain or Italy, two countries which are experiencing the worst outbreaks of COVID-19 in Europe. 

The consensus around the arrival of a vaccine is that we will be without one for at least one year, perhaps as long as 18 months. Such a wait for a vaccine could see even the 2021 season dramatically delayed, and the 2020 season completely discarded. Precisely what that will mean for the results of the Qatar rounds for Moto2, Moto3 and the Asia Talent Cup remains to be seen – for example whether Tetsuta Nagashima will still be considered a Grand Prix winner. 

In anticipation of this, however, it has been announced that engine and aerodynamic development will be frozen until 2022, meaning that the homologated engine specifications from the Thursday before the Qatar GP back at the beginning of March will need to see all non-concession factories (Honda, Ducati, Yamaha and Suzuki) through the end of 2021, whilst concession factories (KTM, Aprilia) will still be allowed to develop both the engine and aerodynamic areas during the development freeze period. 

For the non-concession factories that are not completely happy with their packages as of, essentially, the end of the Qatar test, this could mean the horizon brings a difficult period on-track after the coronavirus cloud somewhat lifts and racing can return. Honda, for example, only found a positive direction with their bike on the final day of the Qatar test, and could be potentially quite limited with what it can do to rectify that situation before 2022. 

On the other hand, this could mean that we see some relatively sizeable changes to engine design for 2022, with factories having the entirety of 2021 to develop a new power plant. In addition to this, the development freeze itself could be of benefit to KTM and Aprilia, who will have the chance to catch up to the four non-concession manufacturers whilst they are forced to stand still.

We probably won’t discover the fate of this year’s MotoGP World Championship for a while longer yet. Dorna will want to avoid cancelling the season at all costs, but should the situation arise where there cannot be any possibility of running the 13 races required for the season to classify as a World Championship, that decision will have to be made. The uncertainty comes not from the championship or its organisers but from the virus, which is unpredictable, as are the responses of the many tens of national government responses to the changing reality of the global pandemic on which the 2020 MotoGP World Championship is balanced.