Suspended Friday's day of the Argentine Grand Prix

The promoters of the MotoGP World Championship have announced the suspension of the Friday session of the Argentine Grand Prix, which will be concentrated on Saturday for practice and qualifying, and on Sunday for the races.

As reported by Motorsport.com, one of the five planes that were to travel from the island of Lombok, in Indonesia, to Tucumán, the closest airport to the circuit, did not arrive last Saturday, when it was expected. Initially, a new flight with another plane was scheduled to arrive in Argentina this Thursday at noon, transferring the material to the circuit during the afternoon.

The teams that have been affected are, among others, Ducati, VR46, Gresini, Yamaha, RNF, KTM, Tech3 and Suzuki, in addition to some of Moto2 and Moto3 and, also, the tire supplier, Michelin.

Without this material, the teams cannot set up the pits and, most importantly, they cannot set up the bikes to have them ready this Friday, when the Grand Prix is scheduled to start.

In a note made public by Dorna, the details of the logistical problem that has forced the start of the grand prix to be delayed are explained.

“The journey from Lombok to Termas consisted of five flights. Three of the planned cargo routes carried cargo from Lombok to Tucuman through technical stops in Mombasa, Lagos and Brazil. On the other two routes cargo was scheduled to travel from Lombok to Doha, from Doha to Accra, in Ghana, and then to Tucumán.

The chain of events began last Wednesday when one of the five planes suffered a problem during a technical stop in Mombasa (Kenya). The first plane, which had already arrived in Tucuman, returned to Lombok to pick up more cargo and unfortunately also suffered a technical problem during a stopover last Wednesday night.

As of Thursday morning, Argentine local time, one cargo remains ashore in Mombasa, Kenya. The plane is awaiting a piece to return to the air, with two pieces – one shipped from Europe and a reserve, shipped from the Middle East – already on the way.

The plane is expected to take off this afternoon and follow the route from Mombasa via Lagos and Brazil, arriving in Tucumán on Friday,” the promoters explain.

For now, the schedules have been rescheduled, which will start on Saturday at 8:45 local time, with two free practice sessions for each category, plus a third for MotoGP before facing the classifications, which will end fifteen minutes before the six in the afternoon, in a very tight program.

On Sunday they will return to normal with the three extended warm-ups and the three races at the initially scheduled times.

MotoGP schedules of the Argentine GP 2022 (peninsular time)