The British MotoGP will return to Silverstone this year and next.
The turn-around after the event was due to move to Donington from Silverstone follows event organisers Circuit of Wales failure to agree final terms with the Midlands circuit.
Silverstone Circuit and Circuit of Wales have requested Dorna Sports, which hold rights to the world series, to propose this change to the FIM. The event will take place over the weekend of 28 – 30 August 2015 and the arrangement has secured the future of MotoGP™ racing in the UK following the recent announcement by Donington Park confirming that they will not be hosting the event.
Patrick Allen, Managing Director of Silverstone said, “A lot of work has been done over recent years to ensure MotoGP™ fans enjoy what Silverstone has to offer and it was devastating for the venue to lose the event last autumn. Two wheel racing is as much a part of Silverstone’s heritage as four wheel racing and I am obviously delighted to be in a position to announce we are hosting both the F1™ and MotoGP™ Grand Prix in 2015.”
“We have recently introduced a family friendly pricing policy for the Formula 1 British Grand Prix which is proving extremely popular and over the next two weeks I will be working closely with my team at Silverstone to launch a ticket model for MotoGP™ that I hope will be equally well received by fans.”
“I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers who have moved their event dates to enable us to accommodate MotoGP™. Particular thanks must go to Renault Sport who have been extremely helpful in working with us to move the date to September 5th & 6th of their World Series by Renault event.”
Patrice Ratti, Renault Sport Technologies Managing Director explained, ‘‘Through our close relationship with Silverstone, we have been able to quickly find a fully satisfactory solution. This will allow the passionate fans to come in droves on 5 and 6 September to attend this comeback in Great-Britain which gathered an average of more than 100.000 people.’’
Michael Carrick, Chief Executive of Circuit of Wales added “We are delighted to announce that we have reached agreement with Silverstone to host the 2015 and 2016 British rounds of MotoGP™. We want to thank the new management at Silverstone, our partners at Dorna and our investors for the rapid response needed to support the 2015 event when it became clear that we would be unlikely to conclude the contractual arrangements at Donington. We are delighted to secure the future of the event for the next two years while our circuit in Wales is under construction. Today’s announcement ensures we will have the 2015 British Round of MotoGP.”
“We continue to advance our development activity on the Circuit of Wales and are focused on the upcoming public inquiry into the deregistration of the common land. We expect construction to commence once this inquiry has concluded.”
A Welsh Government statement said, “We have provided £2m of grant towards the development of the Circuit of Wales project in Blaenau Gwent to date. Any further Welsh Government Support is conditional on the company securing all of the private sector investment for the project in the first place.”
