RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Thursday, October 10th, MotoGP, the main category of the World Speed Championship, announced that it will be back in Rio de Janeiro in three years, in the 2022 season.
According to reports from Motorsport.com, the Brazilian stage of the competition will take place on the Rio Motorpark circuit, in the Deodoro region, West Zone of the city. The track, announced in May this year by President Jair Bolsonaro, has not yet started to be built.
The racing category will have a five-year contract with the Rio Motorpark, starting in 2022.
The city has not hosted MotoGP for 15 years. According to the organizer, Dorna Sports, the establishment of a new location to replace the old Jacarepaguá circuit brings an exciting prospect for the sport.
Still, according to Dorna, the Rio Motorpark is expected to be ready in 2021. The track has a layout of 4.5 km, with seven bends to the left and six to the right. The approximate lap time for MotoGP is approximately one minute and 38 seconds.
Officials are delighted
The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Crivella, celebrated the return of the category to the city: “The construction of the Deodoro track is a magnificent project, with an extraordinary investment that will generate 7,000 jobs and will make Rio regain its leadership role in major competitions. We will take development to a region in the city with many needs, the West Zone, and encourage tourism. Without a cent invested by the city in the project, since the entire investment will be the responsibility of the concessionaire”, concluded Crivella.
JR Pereira, CEO of Rio Motorsports, the concessionaire in charge of Rio Motorpark, also commented on the news: “Dorna was an extremely loyal partner in all the discussions we had,” he commented.
“Now that we have completed the local environmental impact studies and the commission that will analyze the issue is in place, following the regulatory policies of the State Environmental Agency of Rio de Janeiro, we were able to formalize an agreement which was built over two years ago. We are very grateful to Carmelo and his team for having fulfilled the dream of bringing MotoGP back to Rio,” concluded JR Pereira.
Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna Sports, said: “I am very proud to announce that MotoGP will resume racing in Rio de Janeiro, one of the truly iconic cities in the world and in such an incredible country”.
In the past, MotoGP had been in Rio de Janeiro for nine years, from 1995 to 2004. The race was part of the city’s tourist calendar.