Carmelo Ezpeleta will have to open his wallet and buy dinner for the entire MotoGP Safety Commission. Dorna’s CEO lost his bet with Loris Capirossi. The FIM has just announced that the Hungarian Grand Prix at Balatonring has been cancelled.

The Grand Prix of Hungary, scheduled on September 19, is cancelled - the construction work cannot be finished on time - and will be replaced by the Grand Prix of Aragon at the reserve circuit of Motorland Aragon on the same date.

The construction work was depending on a massive loan by Hungarian state owned bank Magyar Fejlesztési Bank, who was expected to underwrite 70% of the construction costs while receiving 30% stakes in return, but the bank baulked refusing to underwrite the loan because due diligence risks showed that no one had calculated a return on the investment and there were also reports of corruption.

Source | motomatters.com

Continue reading: MotoGP: It's Official, Hungarian GP Out, Aragon GP In

The Hungarian GP that was cancelled in 2009 due to funding problems by track owners (30% controlled by the Hungarian Tourism board, 70 % Worldwide Circuit Management S.L) to continue construction of the 4.650 km racing circuit, has received a much needed loan by the Magyar Fejlesztési Bank.

With this cash injection the Sedesa Group will be able to complete the 90 million euro racing venue located near Savoly, 180 kilometres from Budapest near the Lake Balaton holiday area in time for the scheduled September 19th races. Balatonring has a five year contract to host Gran Prix racing.

In June, the Gran Prix Commission, FIM and IRTA will visit Balatonring to officially homologate circuit and if for some reason or other it has not been completed, the GP will not be cancelled but will be held in Spain’s new Motorland Aragon Circuit.

However if the track should be completed on time, veteran racer Loris Capirossi will loose his bet with Dorna’s CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta and have to buy dinner for all the members of the Safety Commission.

Source | bikeracing

Continue reading: MotoGP - Balatonring Circuit to be completed

The MotoGP riders who are part of the Safety Commission met up with Dorna’s CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta on Friday before the Sepang GP and one of the topics discussed was the Balatonring circuit.

Loris Capirossi, who is one of the founding members of the Riders Safety Commission, specifically asked Ezpeleta whether the Hungarian venue will be ready in time for next year’s MotoGP race scheduled for September 19th 2010.

Capirossi is convinced that the track will not be ready on time and that the race will be cancelled as it happened this year, while Ezpeleta stated he is sure that they’ll be racing in Hungary next year.

Management and rider are betting on it, if Capirossi is right Ezpeleta will have to buy dinner for all of the members of the Safety Commission if not, the Italian rider will have to.

Several representatives of Balatonring circuit were in Malaysia and it seems that the track is almost completely asphalted while work on the other structures is believed to begin this winter, weather, economic crisis and funding permitting.

Continue reading: MotoGP - Bets are on for Balatonring

Hungary announced last July that it planned to build a motorcycling circuit to host MotoGP competitions, with the first race scheduled for September 20 and now seems that this leg is set to be canceled due to delays in construction of the new circuit.

The 4,650-metre long Balatonring located near Savoly,180 kilometres from Budapest near the Lake Balaton holiday area was added to the 2009 MotoGP calendar. Motorcycle grand prix racing is very popular in Hungary due to the success of 2007 125cc world champion Gabor Talmacsi.

The blame has been pointed at Spanish group Sedesa, which is building the 80-million-euro track, as the company failed to begin its part of the construction work on time.

Continue reading: Hungarian GP to be cancelled due to construction delays

The first stone of the new £50 million Balatonring circuit, which will host next year’s Hungarian Grand Prix was laid on the construction site near Savoly in Western Hungary on Thursday.

Among those attending the event was local star Gabor Talmacsi, together with team manager Jorge Martinez “Aspar” who was also one of the driving forces behind this project. “I think that it will be exciting to race here because, if you remember Brno, there were 30 to 40,000 people there with my national flag.” I’d like to try the track as soon as possible to gain an advantage, “said Talmacsi, who has quit 125 to move to the 250GP class in 2009.

The proceedings consisted of laying the first stone and burying a ‘time capsule’ containing mementos of the day and the Hungarian and Spanish flags. Also present was Carmelo Ezpeleta, Dorna Sports CEO who commented: “Since we first spoke with the Hungarian government and all the represtatives of the project, we have realized that this is a very important for both them and ourselves. I´m sure that if the weather is OK the track can be finished on time and we can have a Hungarian Grand Prix on 20th September 2009.”

The Balatonring circuit will host MotoGP racing for the next five years starting from 2009.

Source | Crash.net

Continue reading: Balatonring - First stone laid