Another spanish Moto Gp round

[Wim_Impreza]

I can not believe this What a fools, Dorna!

You are seriously still following MotoGP?

60 % of the riders field in MotoGP is already Spain and Italian.

[Corny]

And probably 90% from 4 countries: USA, Australia, Italy and Spain...

For sure you have a point here Wim, it's something that irritates me on this championship. I checked the Moto2 list this week for the first time, that looks a lot more promising! We can speak of a true world championship in Moto2

[AndyRAC]

You are seriously still following MotoGP?

60 % of the riders field in MotoGP is already Spain and Italian.

I guess most of the sponsors are as well.

Seem to rmemeber Bradley Smith riding a Spanish team's bike and nearly all his sponsors were Spanish. Where are all the British ones?

Maybe Dorna are doing it right - maybe there should be 4 Finnish rounds in the WRC.......

[The Phantom]

Why such angst over multiple Spanish and Italian rounds?

They have the money and the public support to be able to do it, and it's fantastic for the Euro riders to have opportunities to ride at home. I imagine that the Italian and Spanish equivalents of our website would have ten times the members we have, and the positive buzz there right now would be incredible. Put simply, those two countries are where the level of enthusiasm for bikes and bike racing is such that we'd all feel like we lived in biking heaven if we could have it in our own countries. It permeates their culture at every level - it's not just a subculture, and yes even the UK and Australia, serious major markets for all of the manufacturers, are still subcultures in the general populace.

There are plenty of countries where moto enthusiasts would love to have a race, but how big are those moto markets? How much support for racing is there from business and government? Eastern Creek was built with New South Wales state government money - $50 million from memory. The government built the track specifically to take the 500GP away from Phillip Island in rival state Victoria i.e. it was built from the ground up as a bike racetrack - not an upgraded local race circuit, not an F1 circuit pressed into service for bike racing... unless that sort of thing is happening in your own country, you're just not going to get a foot in the door at this level.

Also of value is a healthy local series that can both produce riders capable of going to world level, and generate a fanbase to make bringing the circus to town a financially viable proposition. Which is another point worth considering - this whole thing is at the end of the day a business, worth vast amounts of money to all concerned. Decisions are made with an eye on the return, not the wishes of the punters.

I'm personally quite happy about the decision, because I get to see MotoGP on a totally new track - that isn't a sterile souless F1 track - and that doesn't happen very often.

[Wim_Impreza]

And probably 90% from 4 countries: USA, Australia, Italy and Spain...

For sure you have a point here Wim, it's something that irritates me on this championship. I checked the Moto2 list this week for the first time, that looks a lot more promising! We can speak of a true world championship in Moto2

Indeed, the Moto2 list is great. The problem is that we don't see a single second on TV or with luck a very little on RTL / CarChannel (you) and VT4 (me). Moto2 will be awesome, but we can't see and following it on TV. Only the Stoner-Rossi-Lorenzo show, each time again...

@ The Phantom: I watched in November last year two races at the Aragon circuit by the World Series of Renault. It is difficult to overtake and there isn't gravel aside of the circuit, almost only tarmac. It is a Tilke circuit which says it all.