Although it has already lost a historical tradition, the race of the Dutch GP (now the GP of the Netherlands ) of the motorcycling world championship was on Saturdays instead of, as in the rest of the countries and circuits, on Sundays.
Why was the Dutch motorcycle GP in Assen on a Saturday?
The reason why the races in Assen were on Saturday instead of Sunday started out as a religious one, and ended up becoming pure tradition. Something similar to what happened with the Formula 1 Monaco GP , which held its free practice on Thursdays instead of Fridays.
The first Dutch motorcycle GP, in 1925, was not held on any circuit as such, but was held on a track on public roads that ran through several towns for 28.4 kilometres. The ‘Assen & Omstreken’ motorcycling club, which organized the test, had to compose the layout several days before, and those towns were cut off.
The town that hosted the start and finish of that first Dutch GP was Rolde, and the church of that town was located near that main straight, so that its inhabitants could go to Sunday mass, the race was held Saturday.
Already the following year, in 1926, the test moved to Assen, to a circuit very different from the current one, which was 16.5 km long and which hosted races (except during the years of the Second World War) until 1954, when it was For 1955, he built the 7.7-kilometre TT Circuit Assen , which ended up leading to the current one (4.5 km).
Why are the Assen (Dutch GP) MotoGP races no longer on Saturday? now on sunday
Like most changes in the modern world of motorsport, the goodbye to the tradition of racing on Saturday at Assen in MotoGP ended for economic/commercial reasons. On the one hand, the television networks that own the retransmission rights were increasingly pushing the idea that the Dutch GP would be, like the rest of the calendar, on a Sunday, when more audiences are reached (in many professions, on Saturday is working, Sunday is usually a free day).
On the other hand, as defended by MotoGP itself, by moving the days of free practice and qualifying to Friday and Saturday and the Assen race to Sunday, the public that would buy a ticket for the entire grand prix would increase by being able to spend several days in the country. When they were training on Thursday and qualifying on Friday, due to labor issues, there was less presence in the first two days.
Since 2016, the MotoGP Dutch GP (and the current Dutch GP) has been held like the others, from Friday to Sunday, a decision that generated a great division of opinions between fans who defended the peculiarity of the races on Saturday and who wanted Assen to be just another race.
But no, it is not: Assen is the only circuit in the entire calendar that has hosted all the world championships since the creation of the official world championships in 1949.
