There has been an outbreak of coronavirus within the MotoGP paddock, with a number of Honda Racing Corporation personnel in mandatory quarantine after a positive test for COVID-19.
The staff involved are believed to be staff working with satellite team LCR, with both engineers from HRC and crew from LCR currently in isolation.
The first member of the HRC team tested positive for the virus ahead of last weekend’s second race at Misano, and was promptly placed into 14-day isolation in his hotel room. He remains in Italy, having been unable to travel with the rest of the team to Barcelona for this weekend’s Catalan Grand Prix.
With him being one of Cal Crutchlow’s Honda engineers, the Castrol LCR Honda rider conceded that it has made life harder in his garage as he returns from injury – but says that his experienced squad are just getting on with the job at hand.
“It makes life more difficult of course, because we’re short-staffed,” he told The Race today after practice. “But it doesn’t stop us from working hard and continuing to do our jobs in the garage.”
However, a second member of the team has since tested positive today, prompting further team members to go into isolation.
In a brief statement on social media, the LCR squad confirmed that it had a positive test in the garage and that members of its team who came into contact with the staffer who tested positive are now isolating in their hotel rooms in Barcelona.
“Unfortunately today a member of the HRC team working for LCR Honda has tested positive for Covid-19, being immediately isolated. The three members with Category 1 contact have been isolated and tested, returning negative results.”
That prompted a second round of testing within the LCR garage, with Crutchlow telling The Race that the unpleasant experience was part and parcel of going racing in the current climate.
“We’ve all had another two tests today and everyone in the garage has tested negative. I’m not sure how they did it but we got the results back within an hour.
“It’s not nice having two tests in the same day – before I went out this afternoon my nose was constantly running because I’d had a swab up it twice! But it’s OK, it’s just part of it at the minute. It shows just how much we all want to do it, and we can’t change the situation.”
However, with time needed for humans to build up a viral load that shows as a positive result on a test, there could yet be further complications for the team ahead of the next round of the championship in two weeks’ time.
Every member of the paddock currently needs to submit a negative COVID-19 test to the organisers within 48 hours of entering the paddock, but today’s news of a second case within the LCR garage increases the risk of further positive cases ahead of the French Grand Prix.
That could spell disaster for the only glimmer of hope in otherwise dismal year for HRC, should Idemitsu LCR rider Taka Nakagami’s successful season be affected. The Japanese rider is currently seventh in the championship, having scored the majority of Honda’s constructor championship points with a perfect record of top-10 finishes.
The news comes as paddock insiders have expressed concern to The Race about the current state of MotoGP’s public health security measures. Strict coronavirus measures were enacted at the beginning of the season, but those appear to have been slowly reduced in recent rounds, leaving some people frustrated.
And, unlike positive tests at previous rounds of the championship, series organisers Dorna did not communicate that there had been a positive result at Misano, fuelling uncertainty within the paddock as people go about their jobs.
“Fear is certainly spreading through the paddock,” one insider told The Race, “mainly fuelled by the secrecy and then rumours of positive cases. Transparency is needed so people can make their own decisions about if they feel they have had close contact with the suspected cases and get themselves tested.
“The bubble seems to be on the point of bursting, because people who live local to the track here are rumoured to be going home in the evening. Everyone is doing their best to isolate themselves when they’re outside the paddock bubble but people are going home to their families who haven’t been tested or isolated.
“There are more and more people coming into the paddock every weekend too. We’ve been told that it’s essential staff only, and I’m not sure how they count as essential to the running of the event.”
There could be more trouble ahead for the series, as well, with news that the French region of Sarthe has become one of the latest areas in the country to be designated a COVID red zone.
The department’s capital of Le Mans is set to host the next round of the championship in two weeks’ time, with organisers confirming this week that they’re hoping to allow 5000 spectators every day. The same facilities hosted the 24-hour car race last weekend, with the iconic endurance race running behind closed doors.
MotoGP promoter Dorna had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.
