Enjoy a lap of the Most Autodrom ahead of its inaugural WorldSBK round

This weekend the WorldSBK Championship ventures to pastures new with the series’ first-ever visit to the Most Autodrom in the Czech Republic.

It is one of three new venues on the 2021 WorldSBK Championship calendar, together with Navarra in Spain (21-22 August) and the Mandalika Street Circuit in Indonesia (13-14 November)

First up though we have the sixth round of the season held in Most, located 80km north of Prague towards the border with Germany, which revives the Czech Republic’s rich tradition of motorcycle racing that stretches right back to the 1960s.

However, while the Most Autodrom can trace its roots back to the 1970s, it has been largely overshadowed as an international venue by the Masaryk Circuit, better known for its location in the Czech Republic’s (Czechia) second city of Brno.

That venue has held a round of the Grand Prix World Championship almost every year since 1965 and only slipped off the MotoGP calendar for 2021 due to a disagreement over hosting fees and upgrades. 

By contrast, Brno has slipped on and off the WorldSBK schedule, hosting an event on 11 occasions between the inaugural race in 1993 until its last appearance in 2008.

As such, Most will be an entirely new challenge for the WorldSBK riders - so what can they expect when FP1 gets underway?

Well, they will find a high-speed, sweeping circuit with considerable time spent either at full throttle or feathering it, with few opportunities for hard braking block passes.

The lap begins with the slowest corner on the circuit, a right-left chicane reminiscent of the first corner at Misano before a series of tricky kinks similar to those you’d find at Assen, which dives into a medium-speed hairpin that brings you onto the back portion of the circuit. 

Arguably the most crucial part of the circuit though will be the final complex, which will test the balance of the bikes with two fast right-handers that slingshot onto the home straight.

Take a look for yourself with this lap from ex-WorldSSP racer Patrick Hobelsberger, completing a 1m 37.8s lap on a Yamaha R6.

A lap of the Most Autodrom - Patrick Hobelsberger (Yamaha R6)