SAUDI Arabia could be a stop-off for the MotoGP championship in years to come after plans were unveiled to host a round of the championship in the country.
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MotoGP already visits the Arabian Peninsula via Qatar and has done so for some time, thanks to the Losail circuit in Doha. Now though an Arabian prince fancies a slice of the action, and he doesn’t just have MotoGP in his sights.
The ambitious plan is the brainchild of Khalid bin Sultan Al Faisal Al Saud, who is also the president of the Saudi automobile federation. Instead of simply building a track and bidding for a round of the prestigious championship, the plans for Saudi Arabia are much bolder.
He plans to build an entire city, dedicated to racing in a variety of forms, with rally, rallycross, cross country racing, motocross, and MotoGP all encompassed within one facility.
Moto.it reports he said:
"In Qiddiya we will build a real city of motors, with more than 10 circuits to host rally, cross-country, rallycross, motocross, because we want to host all the most prestigious competitions in the world. Including MotoGP, which is considered one of the sports here. most important in the world."
The track is being designed to work for MotoGP, F1, and WEC, with ex-Formula 1 driver Alex Wurz being named as the artist behind its first sketches.
The circuit is in its early stages of design and it isn’t even clear if they have broken ground at the time of writing. It is though claimed to be around 8km in length (4.9-miles), and has two distinct flavours.
The first is a tight and technical section with lots of direction changes linked with short to mid-length straights. The second section, on the right and bottom of the image above, is more flowing and claimed to be inspired by the Nordschleife.
Visordown’s take on the Qiddiya MotoGP circuit
While a new venue joining the championship is not necessarily a bad thing, we hope it is not at the detriment of another more historic and well-visited event.
There are plenty of occasions in the MotoGP calendar where the circus visits a race that is hosted at a state-of-the-art facility, with a stunning track that produces spectacular racing, and sadly there is nobody there to watch it.
We certainly don’t need another venue along those lines.
