“Yes, this ambition is very real” declares Séverine Cirlande, Communication and Press manager of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. “It concerns the return of the World Endurance Championship to Spa in 2018 and a MotoGP Grand Prix project in 2020.”
These are the kind of sentences that will delight all Grand Prix enthusiasts, and in particular those who have not forgotten the events contested on the fantastic Spa-Francorchamps circuit, the last edition of which took place in 1990, after around forty years of motorcycling competitions at the highest level.
It is also the kind of sentence that symbolizes the current communication of Nathalie Maillet, the recent French director of the Ardennes circuit who comes to defend this policy before the Walloon parliament.
Today, Spa hosts F1. Will she be able to do the same with MotoGP?
Didier de Radigues, former pilot of Alain Chevallier and emblematic figure of motorcycling in Belgium, wants to be realistic: “As much as I don't see any insurmountable obstacles to the return of MotoGP...one day, I want to remain realistic: the work is enormous! Infrastructure, logistics, security, politics: I don't see a single area where Spa-Francorchamps is ready for this challenge. Now, that can change… But I fear a publicity effect.”
Simple announcement effect or real project, only the future will tell.
In the meantime, we invite you to rediscover the atmosphere of the paddock of the “most beautiful circuit in the world” in 1973 thanks to the exceptional gallery of our photographer Christian Bouchet (not to be confused with Christian Bourget, another of our photographers still at the Grands Prix. A bit like our Dupont-Dupond, what…)
Source: lavenir.net
