OFFICIAL PROGRAMME
Last year everyone accepted very well the situation because everyone was in front of a new situation that never happened before . the area , see if this is good for the championship itself , for the teams in terms of visibility and which countries you are focusing on more , or maybe you should go to another area . So , there is a little bit of a process . When you tick all the boxes , then you start more in depth the negotiations .” Having a 2020 season at all , as already indicated , was very tough . “ Last year obviously was a very , very special situation ,” said Gregorio . “ We made a lot of races in Spain in general for lots of reasons we can understand . Was it important this year when you expand the calendar not to just say , okay , we need 13 rounds and that ’ s it , no , we tried to thick the boxes as explained before ”. Navarra ? How important was it to move outside ?” Lavilla continued , “ Last year everyone accepted very well the situation because everyone was in front of a new situation that never happened before . So , no one was complaining about racing many times in Iberia as the important was to save the championship , to keep racing . While it was mainly focused in Spain , Portugal , but it was important to go ahead . This was a temporary solution and everyone accepted . Obviously , we had to try to go back to certain normality . Honestly speaking , at least personally , I thought that with what happened last year we could have a difficult start this year , as our first race was planned in Australia then we postponed it and then we saw that maybe the Netherlands was going to be difficult . But honestly speaking , I always thought that starting in May , we were more or less in the safe position because in summer things should be better . Last summer things were much better and we could re-start last year in August and we could do all the championship . By October everything was fine . So , when you consider that after one year with starting the vaccination - obviously I ’ m not so good at forecasting ! - but my wishes were very , very positive that this thing was - not over - but more controlled . The variants , lately the delta variant impacted everywhere . Everywhere . So , with more difficulties but we ’ re still going ahead . More difficulties - meaning more restrictions for traveling and more permissions - but we are here .” The current situation is still fluid of course , but one big question was put to Gregorio early in the Assen weekend , one that cannot really be answered yet , of course . Are you confident that because of all these changes we will get to all 13 planned rounds ? “ If we go 13 , it ’ s time to celebrate …” said Lavilla . “ When you see how everything is around .” We have already had 15 races this year , so even a few more would make a season , of course . It is not something that anybody wants , least of all Lavilla . “ Honestly , it ’ s not what we want but having a triple race or double race at each round , if we do six , seven , it ’ s more than enough in terms of the championship and to have a world champion ,” said Greg . “ I ’ m not saying that below that it will not be a fair champion . I ’ m not saying that . Currently , the situation , it ’ s that maybe 13 is very optimistic , even if all the circuits are working hard to be ready . I have no news today that this cannot be accomplished . But even the circuits , as with ourselves , doesn ’ t know what will happen with the pandemic situation .” In his role as overall Director of WorldSBK , Lavilla is the final decision maker from Dorna ’ s point of view for any new tracks , but he has a specialist in this area who does a lot of the work . Eva Jirsenska is the Circuit Relations Senior Manager for Dorna , for new tracks and existing tracks . “ Well , as said there are few areas I need to cover , so basically once everything is decided there a lot of work to implement it to make a successful round . Let ’ s put it this way , when I started , I was mainly focused on the sporting side . The sporting means it was the circuit in terms of track safety and races and schedules and classes and rules , paddock organisation and all what you may understand is related to racing . Then when Dani Carrera ( recent WorldSBK
EXCITING CONTENT
53