MotoGP | Ezpeleta: “Indian GP? It will be decided in the next few days”

Last week, Motorsport.com reported that the race at the Buddh International Circuit, originally scheduled for the end of September, looks set to be scrapped from the calendar after local promoters canceled their contract with World Championship promoter Dorna.

In response, Pushkar Nath Srivastava, CEO of Fairstreets Sports, the Indian promoter, assured that the event will take place. “The tender is scheduled. What is circulating are just rumours. All contractual obligations will be updated in June,” he told the Press Trust Of India (PTI). According to the Fairstreets boss, the delay is due to the country’s midterm election period, which ends on June 1st. However, Motorsport.com understands that the payment delay relates to last year’s race, not this year’s.

In this sense, Ezpeleta said on Wednesday, during the presentation of this weekend’s Catalan Grand Prix, that his team is evaluating the best option, and that this will be announced soon.

“India is one of the things to be evaluated. It will be decided in the next few days. We cannot take too much time: next week or the following one, at the most”, said the Catalan, implying that there is a problem to be solved for regarding the calendar date.

Dorna has been working on an ideal plan for some time. The idea would be to reschedule the Kazakhstan Grand Prix, originally scheduled for mid-June and postponed due to heavy rains that threw the country into a state of emergency, and move it to the weekend of the Indian round at the end of September.

Not an easy task, given that there is no certainty that everything will be ready on the Sokol circuit by that date. In any case, everything seems to indicate that the event in Kazakhstan would only be possible in that window and that, if it is not available, it will be difficult to go ahead. “We need to see where to move Kazakhstan; we will know something in the next few days,” Ezpeleta said.