MotoGP will have its second attempt at staging a 21-race season in 2023, with debuts for the Kazakhstan Grand Prix and a race in India.
Motorcycle racing’s grand prix category was already scheduled to run 21 races this year, but Finland’s KymiRing dropped off the calendar to make it an even 20 – before reportedly beginning administration procedures.
The Finnish venue is nowhere to be seen on the provisional 2023 schedule, replaced by the Sokol International track in Kazakhstan, which is due to host its first MotoGP round in mid-July.
Meanwhile, the new race at the ex-Formula 1 Indian venue Buddh International – confirmed as being pencilled in for 2023 earlier today – is set to take place on Sep 24.
These new additions come at the expense of calendar mainstay Aragon, the Spanish venue having hosted at least one MotoGP race each season since 2010.
But Aragon is likely to return in future seasons as part of MotoGP’s idea of rotating the established races it has on the Iberian Peninsula.
As announced before, Qatar’s traditional start-of-season slot has been taken by Portuguese venue Algarve (Portimao) due to construction work at Qatar’s Losail track.
This will be followed by races in America and the USA, before MotoGP’s usual ‘European season’ begins in late April at Jerez.
The Qatar race switching to November means that MotoGP will have a ‘flyaway’ run of seven races towards the end of the season, albeit the campaign will then conclude at Valencia in Europe.
The schedule features a pair of ‘triple-headers’, as well as particularly tight turnarounds between some races on different continents – with less than a week between the Portugal opener and Argentina, and between Qatar and the Valencia finale.
Provisional 2023 MotoGP calendar
March 24-26 Portuguese GP
March 31-April 2 Argentine GP
April 14-16 Americas GP
April 28-30 Spanish GP (Jerez)
May 12-14 French GP
June 9-11 Italian GP
June 16-18 German GP
June 23-25 Dutch GP
July 7-9 Kazakh GP
August 4-6 British GP
August 18-20 Austrian GP
September 1-3 Catalan GP
September 8-10 San Marino GP
September 22-24 Indian GP
September 29-October 1 Japanese GP
October 13-15 Indonesian GP
October 20-22 Australian GP
October 27-29 Thai GP
November 10-12 Malaysian GP
November 17-19 Qatar GP
November 24-26 Valencia GP
