The Australian Grand Prix will be held a day early due to the harsh weather forecast for Phillip Island on Sunday.
The weekend’s main race has been moved to 3.10pm AEDT on Saturday due to strong winds which organizers fear could wreak havoc on Sunday.
Local hope Jack Miller, whose best performance at Phillip Island in MotoGP was a third place in similar wind conditions in 2019, said after Friday’s practice that he wished to have this year’s race one day later. early.
Organizers said lessons learned in 2019, when a qualifying session had to be scrapped, helped them in their decision this time around.
“Conditions and forecasts change and we wanted to wait until today to get the best forecast from the official (meteorological) office,” said Carlos Ezpeleta, sporting director of Dorna, the MotoGP commercial rights holder.
“We have a very good reference for our wind tolerance on this circuit after having to report the qualifying session in 2019.
“It looks like our forecast for Sunday this year is very similar to what we had four years ago.
“The safety of the riders and fans is the most important, which is why after meeting with the teams, the decision was unanimous to move the sprint from Saturday to Sunday and the race from Sunday to Saturday to guarantee our most important race of the weekend.
“We’ve all come a long way to Australia and it’s important that fans can watch the main race.
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