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This is not an April Fools article. This weekend's MotoGP round, the Gran Premio Michelin de la República Argentina, has been disrupted by delays in getting some of the teams' equipment from the previous round in Indonesia to the remote track in Argentina because of problems with the cargo carrier, a company called Aerostan.
Repeat: I am not making this up.
Instead of watching motorcycles on track in practice sessions and scrutinizing live timing results, reporters at the track in Argentina on Friday were watching live positioning of a cargo plane.
The 747 now looks like it's coming in to land at Lagos airport. Hope this is a scheduled refuel. This is more exciting than watching FP1 on a wet Friday morning! pic.twitter.com/dQOy5lxY7b
— Mat Oxley (@matoxley) April 1, 2022
Five cargo planes carry all the race motorcycles and all the teams' gear from one round to the next. The flights from Indonesia to Argentina made two stops in Africa for refueling. Separate problems with two of the planes caused delays, and one of them is still on its way across the Atlantic as this is written Friday morning. MotoGP officials decided it would not be fair to let some teams begin normal practice while others were still waiting for their motorcycles, tools, leathers and the rest to arrive. So Friday's practice sessions were canceled and the entire schedule of practice, qualifying and the races will be compressed into Saturday and Sunday — if there are no further problems.
Even when the plane does arrive in Argentina, all the gear must be unloaded and transported by land to the rather remote track, which is not near a major city or airport.
Air cargo transport has been affected, like so many other international transportation issues, by the pandemic, first, and the sanctions on Russia, more recently. And even if Sunday's race goes off as planned, the teams still have to pack everything up and get it to Texas by next weekend.
