Hungary drops out of WBSK calendar 2024, Estoril moves up

Rumors about a potential cancellation of the Hungarian debut were already circulating at the end of February. Even then, the Kazakhstan Grand Prix of MotoGP was in shaky shape, with a lack of qualified track personnel for a race weekend of the motorcycle world championship. Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta then announced that there would be no replacement in the event of a cancellation.

Balaton Park Circuit already cancelled by MotoGP as replacement track

A statement that was quite surprising, as when MotoGP originally announced the calendar for 2023, it had also presented the Balaton Park Circuit as an official replacement track in case of any cancellations. This led to speculation that the local track promoter had run into financial problems. Homologation by mid-June, the original date of the Kazakhstan GP, ​​was therefore impossible.

At the same time, doubts began to arise about the planned Hungarian event of the Superbike World Championship. The event was actually supposed to take place at the Balaton Park Circuit from August 23rd to 25th. That was almost two and a half months more time than for a MotoGP event. But even this was not enough to get the track into an acceptable operating condition for a visit by the WorldSBK, despite the lower homologation requirements. On Friday, the Superbike World Championship and the FIM announced the cancellation of the Hungarian event for precisely this reason.

No German comeback: WorldSBK will return to Estoril in 2024

At the same time, a replacement has already been presented: a second Portugal event in Estoril. The Superbike World Championship already raced on the former MotoGP and Formula 1 track in 1988, 1993 and most recently between 2020 and 2022. Previously, there had also been rumors of a fourth Spanish event on the Circuito de Navarra or a comeback in Germany. The last time the event took place there was in 2017, and Oschersleben and the Hockenheimring would have been options. But the WorldSBK will not return to Germany.

However, since the Superbike World Championship is already racing in Portimao just two weeks before the originally planned event in Hungary, the replacement weekend in Estoril will only take place from October 11th to 13th in order to avoid two races in a row in Portugal. The WorldSBK will therefore now conclude its 2024 season with a double header in Estoril and Jerez. However, there is now a four-week gap in the 2024 Superbike World Championship calendar between the events in Portimao and Magny-Cours at the beginning of August and the beginning of September respectively.

Superbike racing calendar 2024: