FEBRUARY 1, 2024

MotoGP not ruling out Madrid for joint F1 race weekend

Formula 1 and MotoGP, the top global motor racing categories on four and two wheels respectively, are inching towards a sensational joint race weekend.

Long time MotoGP supremo Carmelo Ezpeleta, 78, has been dropping hints about the idea for months, with the new 2026 F1 venue in Madrid seen as a possible host for the joint world championship round.

He told Marca sports newspaper that the fact Madrid will be a semi-street circuit - normally too dangerous for MotoGP - is not necessarily a deal-breaker.

Circuits are not separated between urban and non-urban, but safe and unsafe, Ezpeleta insisted.

"In F1 there are safe circuits that are not safe for us, but all the motorcycle circuits would be safe for F1, like the new one in Lombok (Indonesia). That is a street circuit but you can race perfectly there on a motorcycle.

If there was an urban area that is approved for motorcycles, we wouldn't mind at all.

Ezpeleta was speaking after visiting the site of F1's 2026 Madrid GP this week.

We did not see a little, we saw a lot and I really like what we saw of Madrid - a lot. I liked everything, he said.

I think it's a very good idea and I'm very happy about it.

As for whether Madrid really could stage a joint MotoGP-F1 round, Ezpeleta answered: "We have not looked at it yet.

At the moment it has not been discussed - they have not contacted us about it. It is not a project that we have in mind at the moment, he insisted.

We keep thinking about it, but I don't know where or how or when, but we keep doing it. We have known each other since 1992 and we talk a lot, he said, referring to his F1 CEO counterpart, Stefano Domenicali.

We have talked about that among other things because the problems it has can be rectified, even if I don't know when. I don't know. But we are not going to give up.

(GMM)