Unacceptable Brazil track farce was MotoGP at its worst

It is a testament to the job MotoGP Sports Entertainment (formerly Dorna Sports) to be able to continue growing the championship and keep expanding the calendar.

The Brazilian Grand Prix is one of those calendar expansion successes, and the 2026 weekend should have reflected that. Not seen on the calendar since 2004 when the final Rio Grand Prix was held, MotoGP’s return to Brazil saw it welcome back one of motorsport’s most passionate fanbases.

And the fans showed their love for MotoGP by voting with their feet (and their wallets) by welcoming a record crowd for the Brazilian Grand Prix of almost 150,000 across the weekend. The fans were treated to an enthralling sprint, the thunderous reaction to Marc Marquez’s race-winning overtake in the Saturday contest enough to even break the speakers on your television.

The grand prix featured some tense moments, but was a considerable letdown in terms of spectacle compared to the sprint. Though the fact that the race was run at all was fortunate, given the multitude of problems that plagued the Goiania track over the weekend, right up until a few moments before the grand prix was due to start.

The build-up to the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend at the Ayrton Senna circuit, not used for MotoGP since 1989, came with it a great deal of uncertainty. Scheduled as the second round of the championship, work was still ongoing at the venue into January.

Bringing the track up to Grade A FIM standard required a complete resurfacing of the asphalt, as well as various facility upgrades. FIM representatives insisted in January that there was “no cause for concern”.

Work was completed on time, to the organisers’ credit, but heavy rain in the days prior to the race weekend starting left parts of it underwater. Various pictures emerged showing the scale of the flooding, with some showing the true extremes of the waterlogging apparently incorrectly being labelled as AI-generated.

Brazil is nearing the end of its rainy season, but organisers had reportedly been caught off guard by the volume of precipitation that battered the Goiania region in the build-up to the grand prix weekend.

While the track drained well, the pooling continued into Friday after another downpour overnight, delaying practice by an hour. Trackhouse team boss Davide Brivio was less than impressed with the situation.

“It’s very disappointing to see this,” he told Sky Italy. “While on the on hand we’re happy to be in Brazil and continue expanding MotoGP’s reach, exploring new territories like South America, on the other hand I’m disappointed by the track’s level of preparation for this round.

“There’s a lot of talk about how MotoGP needs to grow, asking teams to invest, improve visibility and provide high-level hospitality. At the same time, the promoter must do its part. It’s true that a new track always has the classic first-year problems, but what we want is for MotoGP not to be able to afford these situations. That’s my take on it.”

He said this during the delay to the action on Friday. Little did anyone know just how bad the situation with the track would get.

MotoGP’s track homologation procedure raises serious questions

Saturday’s track running suffered a major delay after MotoGP qualifying, when a sinkhole appeared off the racing line on the pit straight. A statement from MotoGP on that matter read: “Due to the heavy rains in the past days, there has been a depression in the track surface caused by soil movement.”

Given the tropical nature of the country, it’s concerning that the asphalt was laid to such a standard that it couldn’t mitigate potential damage from rainfall. Organisers were in a rush to get everything ready, and this issue speaks to that.

But the FIM’s homologation process doesn’t seem robust enough if it cleared this track surface, which then began breaking up at Turns 11 and 12 on Sunday and led to a sudden shortening of the race from 31 laps to 23 with just a few minutes’ notice before lights out. There was also a vast number of crashes at Turn 4 across all classes during the weekend.

The repair job on the sinkhole, which was filled with concrete, was not to a high standard, but the best that could have been done given the short space of time to work with and the desire to continue running the race weekend. As it was off the racing line, the riders were generally accepting of the fix.

“It’s true they did an incredible job, but luckily the hole wasn’t on the track [racing line], because otherwise the race wouldn’t have been possible,” Marc Marquez said. Aprilia’s Jorge Martin added: “They fixed it. I didn’t even see it. I think it was off the racing line. We can race with a pothole because it’s not on the racing line, so we MotoGP riders can manage it.”

The circuit didn’t receive its Grade A homologation until the race weekend itself. That’s not uncommon. FIM safety delegate Loris Capirossi told GPOne a few years ago ahead of the first - and so far only - Indian Grand Prix that: “All tracks in the world are homologated on the Thursday before the grand prix and lose their homologation when it ends. This is because we ask for special types of paints and protections, most circuits remove them on the Monday after the race and therefore also lose their homologation.”

That said, asphalt is quite a bit different to kerbing and paints, and to clear the Goiania circuit given the problems that followed only further thrusts the homologation process into the spotlight. Moreover, the person now designated as safety officer in MotoGP is Tome Alfonso Ezpeleta, who is MotoGP SE CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta’s nephew. Whether anyone likes to admit it or not, that is a conflict of interest - and that is unacceptable in the matter of rider safety.

Things got worse on Sunday when the track at Turns 11 and 12 started to break apart. This seemingly happened as the preceding Moto2 race wore on. But the first the MotoGP riders knew about it was just a few minutes before they were due to set off on the warm-up lap.

Reduced from 31 laps to 23 laps, which is the two-thirds threshold to award maximum points. Anything less than that would have seen the score cut down. The confusion led to stern discussions between team bosses and officials, while riders were informed from the front of the grid backwards. The knock-on effect of this was that those in front had time to make a tyre change, while those at the back couldn’t.

Why the race start wasn’t delayed hasn’t yet been explained. Given the situation, it arguably should have been, if not to allow the riders extra sighting laps to understand more about the breaking asphalt. Perhaps a proper riders’ union would have opened the door to that possibility, though it’s hard not to look at the rushed change to the race distance as exploiting that vacuum. Michelin also insists it was not consulted about the lap count change.

While it didn’t cause any serious incidents in the end, a number of riders spoke of bruising from bits of broken asphalt being flicked up and striking them. Marc Marquez said the mistake he made at Turn 11, which allowed Fabio Di Giannantonio back through on him, was because of the broken track surface.

Crash has asked MotoGP SE for a comment on the asphalt situation and the homologation process, but has not received a reply at the time of publishing.

Liberty Media can’t be happy with the situation that unfolded in Brazil

Certainly, lessons will be learned from this year’s Brazilian Grand Prix, and the track will undergo the necessary work needed to ensure there are no repeats in 2027. But this isn’t the first time this has happened on MotoGP’s watch.

The Indonesian Grand Prix’s return at Mandalika in 2022 saw the track surface break apart in the last sector due to the wrong asphalt mix being used, with the race distance shortened to compensate. While MotoGP doesn’t lay the asphalt, it is meant to ensure its circuits are up to the correct standard.

Now under Liberty Media’s ownership and hoping to reap the investment rewards from that, the US company cannot be happy with what it saw over the Brazil weekend. Teething issues at new circuits are fine, but the problems at Goiania go way beyond that.

Some riders came to MotoGP’s defence. Brazilian Grand Prix winner Marco Bezzecchi said: “I have to say, that honestly, I’m super happy about the job they did to the track because they made everything in a really short amount of time. The effort that they put in [on Saturday] to make us race, even if they found a problem on the straight, was amazing. So, I think the organisation did a wonderful job. Of course, we had some problems on the track, but it’s a completely new surface, a completely new outside of the track, a completely new paddock. So, I think we have to be happy.”

Aprilia team-mate Jorge Martin added: “On Wednesday, it seemed like almost the GP was cancelled. So, thanks to all of the people who were working [here], we could race. For sure, I didn’t know why they did a shorter race, but as soon as I was behind Marc [Marquez] and Fabio [Di Giannantonio] I understood because some stones were coming to my fairing and my body.”

What happened in Brazil is bad enough at any level of racing, let alone in a world championship. While the direct onus now falls on the Goania circuit to carry out immediate works, MotoGP must look inward at its own processes to avoid this happening the next time the paddock heads to a new track.