{"id":555462,"date":"2026-03-21T18:43:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/555462\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T18:43:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:43:16","slug":"brazil-motogp-weekend-disrupted-by-track-sinkhole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/555462\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil MotoGP weekend disrupted by track sinkhole"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend\u2019s return to MotoGP action at Brazil\u2019s Goiania circuit faces yet another significant setback, forcing a major reshuffling of the Saturday schedule.<\/p>\n

Days of heavy rain at the circuit appear to have caused a sinkhole to open up on the start-finish straight following MotoGP\u2019s qualifying session.<\/p>\n

Photographs seen by The Race have confirmed the extent of the damage done to the circuit, with workers ending up up to their waists in a pit right on the middle of the track\u2019s main straight.<\/p>\n

\"Goiania<\/p>\n

MotoGP\u2019s team bosses were understood to have attended a crisis meeting with organisers, in an attempt to work out what happens next. It was initially decided that Moto3 and Moto2 qualifying were being postponed – with MotoGP prioritising getting the premier-class sprint in on Saturday.<\/p>\n

FIM MotoGP safety officer Tome Alfonso was quoted as describing the issue as “a depression in the track surface caused by soil movement”.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is off the racing line and we\u2019re already repairing the problem. If everything goes well, we should be able to have the MotoGP Sprint today,” he said.<\/p>\n

MotoGP subsequently announced the race would get going 20 minutes past the original schedule, before changing the target to 35 minutes and then finally over an hour.<\/p>\n

The situation comes as a fresh blow to the first weekend at Goiania in 30 years, following heavy rain overnight on Thursday that caused fresh flooding to the track and delayed Friday morning\u2019s track action.<\/p>\n

\"Goiania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This weekend\u2019s return to MotoGP action at Brazil\u2019s Goiania circuit faces yet another significant setback, forcing a major…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-555462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}