MotoGP Argentina schedule altered again amid freight delays

The weekend schedule for the 2022 MotoGP Argentina Grand Prix is set to be altered again due to ongoing freight delays, with MotoGP starting later on Saturday.

MotoGP was forced to cancel Friday’s running at Termas de Rio Hondo owing to one of its cargo planes bringing freight from the Indonesian GP getting stuck in Kenya with a technical issue.

Since Wednesday, the flight grounded in Kenya has been awaiting a new engine valve after experiencing problems and was only able to get off the ground in the early hours of Friday morning.

It is now not expected to arrive to Argentina until around 9pm local time tonight having come from Kenya via Lagos and Brazil for refuelling, with the missing freight not set to get to the circuit until close to midnight.

With Saturday’s revised schedule due to start at 10:35am local time for the MotoGP class, it would have left little time for the likes of Gresini Racing and VR46 – who have none of its motorcycles – to get itself ready in time.

As a result, organisers have elected to alter the schedule further to start the day much earlier at 8:15am local time and run Moto3 and Moto2 FP1/FP2 back-to-back through to 12:20pm.

Empty garages

Photo by: Federico Faturos

MotoGP FP1 has now been extended from 45 minutes to one hour and will get underway at 12:35 local time (4:35pm BST), with FP2 – also running to 60 minutes – getting underway at 3:40pm local time (7:40pm BST).

Qualifying will follow directly after FP2 at 5:05pm local time (9:05pm BST) as originally scheduled, with the Q1 and Q2 groups being decided based on combined times at the end of FP2.

Sunday’s warm-up sessions have been extended to 20 minutes for Moto3 and Moto2, while the MotoGP warm-up will run to 40 minutes.

The new weekend schedule looks like this:

Saturday:
Moto3 FP1: 0815-0905 (BST-4)
Moto2 FP1: 0920-1010
Moto3 FP2: 1025-1115
Moto2 FP2: 1130-1220
MotoGP FP1: 1235-1335
Moto3 Q1: 1350-1405
Moto3 Q2: 1415-1430
Moto2 Q1: 1445-1500
Moto2 Q2: 15:10-15:25
MotoGP FP2: 15:40-16:40
MotoGP Q1: 1705-1720
MotoGP Q2: 1730-1745

Sunday:
Moto3 Warm-up: 0920-0940 (BST-4)
Moto2 Warm-up: 0950-1010
MotoGP Warm-up: 1020-1100
Moto3 Race: 1200
Moto2 Race: 13:20
MotoGP Race: 15:00

On Thursday, Dorna Sports CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta said its freight problems were compounded by the war in Ukraine and the sanctions that have been placed on Russia as at least 20% of cargo haulage companies previously used were Russian-based.