Thailand lands MotoGP opener, but F1 race drifts away

MotoGP has announced Thailand will be the new home of the season opener in 2025, just as the country’s hopes of staging an F1 race go on hold.

Thailand’s Buriram will take over round 1 from Qatar for the 2025 and 2026 seasons.

Whilst the full calendar is yet to be revealed, the 2025 season opener in Thailand will be staged on March 2.

Thailand has been on the MotoGP card since 2018 with the only exceptions being 2020 and 2021 when the race was cancelled due to COVID-19.

Although Qatar is locked in to 2031, it has lost its title of kicking off the season under lights, which it has done on all but two occasions since 2007.

Dorna Sports CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta was delighted to announce the season opener was moving to a new home in southern Asia.

“We are very excited to reveal that the 2025 and 2026 season openers will be the Thai Grand Prix at Buriram. Southeast Asia is one of our most important markets, both for the sport and for our factories and partners,” said Carmelo.

“Thailand plays a leading role in that, and the passion is clear to see in the huge crowds we enjoy at Buriram year on year. 

“We know they will create an incredible atmosphere for the first event of the season.

“As soon as Buriram joined the calendar, it became an instant favourite. 

“It’s easy to understand why: it’s a fantastic place to enjoy MotoGP, with a layout crafted to showcase the best of our close racing – very much proven by the incredible show we enjoyed at the track last season. 

“We’re looking forward to coming back later this year and then to returning in 2025 for a history-making season opener.”

Whilst the future of Thailand and MotoGP is exciting, it is unclear where the country sits with Formula 1.

Plans for Thailand to host a Grand Prix from the start of 2027 have now been put on hold, after yet another political crisis has hit the Land of 1000 Smiles.

Srettha Thavisin, Prime Minister of Thailand, and Stefano Domenicali, CEO, Formula One Group during the Emilia Romagna GP. Photo by Mark Sutton / Sutton Images

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin was forced to abandon his role after a Supreme Court ruling last Wednesday and was replaced, two days later, by 37 year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra, younger daughter of the divisive Thaksin Shinawatra, who led the country between 2001 and 2006 before being deposed by a coup.

Thavasin, a businessman turned politician, was the driving force behind the plan to organize a Formula 1 street race in Bangkok, seeing it as one way to help the Thai tourism industry that is still reeling from the effects of the Covid-19 period.

The country’s late and strict measures had a very negative effect on Thailand’s image and that’s why the number of visitors is still close to 30 percent less than at the end of 2019.

Hosting a Grand Prix was seen by Thavasin as a quick and relatively inexpensive way (really!) of boosting the number of visitors to the country and that’s why the former Prime Minister made a big effort to reach a deal, in principle, with Formula 1’s Stefano Domenicali.

It was the Thai government which initiated talks with the Italian manager –Thavasin and Domenicali had a couple of video calls earlier this year in preparation for a face-to-face meeting that took place in Bangkok and a second, in Imola, during the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

The then Prime Minister made a point of walking around the grid and talking to as many TV stations as possible to talk about his plans, hours after shaking hands with Domenicali on the basis of a future deal.

With Thavasin now gone from power and a completely new government yet to be sworn in, talks between the two parties will be back to square one but that doesn’t mean the deal is completely off.

Given that she’s likely to follow the policies initiated by her father and later resumed by her aunt Yingluck, also Prime Minister between 2011 and 2014 (also ousted by a military coup), new Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra may well picked the deal up where Thavasin left off and continue to push some state-owned companies, like oil giants PTT, and also private ones, like Red Bull, to put money behind the project.

Nevertheless, with transitions of power taking time and halting the momentum of this kind of negotiations, plans for Formula 1 to add a second Southeast Asian race to its calendar may be delayed by one or two years – and the project could be even moved to a different location.

That’s because, according to local sources, the obstacles to putting together a street circuit in the proposed area of Ratchadamnoen Avenue are quite big and would force the closure of some of the most lucrative historic sites of the city during the Grand Prix week. 

Image: Gold and goose

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