The uncertainty around this weekend’s Argentine Grand Prix schedule has continued into a second day as the MotoGP paddock still awaits the arrival of the delayed 20 percent of the freight from the last round of the championship in Indonesia.
But with flight tracking sites now showing the freight as en route from Africa, where it had been stranded for three days due to a broken aircraft, to South America, it is looking increasingly likely that the revised schedule issued on Thursday will once again have to be amended.
A significant amount of the paddock’s freight, including everything belonging to VR46 and Gresini Racing, had been stuck in Mombasa, Kenya since Wednesday, after the Boeing 747 jumbo jet flying it from Lombok to Termas de Rio Hondo suffered mechanical problems.
The plane, EX-47001, is the second of Aerostan’s fleet of two to break down at the Kenyan airport while ferrying MotoGP equipment, with it having been sent to relieve the first one after it initially suffered a problem.
The two planes belonging to the Kyrgyzstani airline are both over 35 years old – but amid a global cargo plane shortage caused both by the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, MotoGP organiser Dorna has been left in an unenviable situation and has managed to respond well to the external obstacles being thrown its way so far.
Its first major response was a complete alteration of the weekend’s schedule, with all track action cancelled on Friday in favour of a heavily revised Saturday timetable that crammed in five sessions for the premier class ahead of Sunday’s relatively normal race day. But, with logistics still not quite slotting into place, it would come as no surprise if there are further revisions to come.
The EX-47001 plane carrying the freight is currently in transit from Lagos, Nigeria (where it had stopped to refuel) to Salvador in Eastern Brazil, where it will again stop to refuel after a flight time of six hours. With a further four hours to go afterwards to bring it to Tucuman, the nearest airport to the Termas circuit capable of handling a fully-loaded 747, it should arrive around 10pm local time on Friday.
From there, the plane will need to be unloaded and its contents will need to be inspected by customs before it is loaded onto trucks for the hour-and-a-half drive to Termas – meaning that realistically teams might not receive things until midnight.
And of course, when things arrive it isn’t just as simple as opening the boxes and going racing. Bikes are normally packed ‘as is’ after races, meaning that after a wet and dirty race last time out in Indonesia a significant amount of cleaning will be needed. One team which has already received its bikes told The Race that it took four hours on Wednesday to leave them in good condition again.
Then, the regular routine maintenance carried out ahead of any race weekend also needs to be completed and the garage needs to be built up – a process that can easily take another eight hours and normally comprises the full day’s work for mechanics on Wednesday and Thursday.
With that in mind, it seems entirely possible that we’ll yet see a revised schedule from MotoGP, with the model used after severe weather in Australia in 2019 one potential option to reduce the impact of the latest freight issues.
That year, extremely high winds on Saturday afternoon saw the FP4 practice session red-flagged and qualifying postponed, with the two sessions to decide the grid order instead held on Sunday morning. Changing the schedule again to a similar one in Termas could help prevent some of the issues.
One possible option that would work is to delay the start of Saturday’s action until lunchtime, allowing teams more time to work on their bikes after they arrive.
With Saturday track action originally scheduled to run from 0845 for Moto3 until MotoGP qualifying concludes at 1745, rearranging the timed sessions to Sunday morning would free up nearly three valuable hours from the schedule.
And, with extended warm-up sessions and later race starts already scheduled for Sunday morning, it’s entirely possible that an 0830 start would allow enough time for all three classes to qualify before their respective races.
