The Mandalika International Street Circuit is under construction on the Indonesian island of Lombok and is aiming to be completed by the middle of next year, possibly permitting MotoGP to race there near the end of the 2021 calendar.
Mandalika will be 2.68 miles long with 17 corners. Construction is well underway (one of the two videos below shows the current state). The track will be one of the fastest on the calendar, and the circuit itself is aiming to have the largest fan capacity (150,000) available on the MotoGP calendar.
The track is being built to standards that satisfy not only MotoGP, but the highest standards in automobile racing, which would permit Formula One races at Mandalika. The new circuit is under development in the midst of a luxury tourism resort. Take a look at the two videos below:
Beautiful venue. Gonna be some epic crashes coming out of that last increasing-hairpin followed by the final sharp-left to the straightaway.
It’s nice to know that new race tracks are still being built somewhere on earth.
My mother in law lived in Indonesia for a few years as a child. She’s always on about wanting to go there. I hate travel. So I told her not to look my way. They dragged me to Antarctica and Easter Island last year. Pointless trip IMO.
It’s funny. In the eighties and nineties going riding in Europe and seeing a 500GP race was my only bucket list item. In 2012 I moved to The Netherlands and to Paris, France in 2015. By then of course the four stroke rules had destroyed GP racing for me and to this day I refuse to spend a dime of my money to support the series in any way.
I did do a lot of nice riding during the five years that I lived on Europe. I just didn’t go to any races. I did ride 17 observed trials events while living in NL. My buddies didn’t want me in their class. So I rode a tougher one. I crashed my brains out and broke some costly parts. It was too difficult to continue to do while living in France. It takes longer to escape the Parisian gravity well than it takes to go just about anywhere in NL. And there are few events anywhere near Paris. That place is awful.
Is there anything you don’t hate, aren’t disappointed in, protesting against, or angry about?
Ice cream? Blues guitar? Gorgeous women? Perfect sunsets? Panda bears playing together?
Anything at all?
Well put.
The man goes to Antarctica and Easter Island and calls it pointless…. the logic escapes me 🤔
Single-track baby! I love the stuff. The trail fairy was out yesterday and blew all the leaves off my daily mountain bike trails.
My issue with travel is that I have no interest in staring stupidly at things. If I am going to go someplace. I want to do something while I am there. Skiing, dirt biking, mountain biking, whatever.
Being married to a travel junkie is hell for me. Hardly a weekend went by during my five years in Europe that I wasn’t living out of a suitcase in yet another town that I just had to stare stupidly at.
The two things that I never want to see again is an airport or a city. I’ve been living 40 minutes from Boston for three years and I am happy to have never been there.
Yeah. When they took the crank handles off the front of cars and went with electric starters they pretty much destroyed cars for me.
Perhaps the will mandate them with the rule book in F1 and then change the name to AutoGP. Boy would that be exciting!
For some folks anyway… I guess.
This topic is about a new circuit for MotoGP not reading about how many things you don’t like.
On topic: the circuit looks awesome. Good to see another venue that MotoGP will race on and makes good business seeing that region is bike crazy. It also looks like it will be both FIM and FIA homologated so I’m guessing F1 will be racing there too.
I’m not a fan of all the shallow bends. All they really do if effectively narrow the track and limit passing opportunities.
That and the unfortunate feature of a drag strip on any road course is unwelcome in my book. There is no way to win if you are not on a fast rig.
I’ve made quite a few ice race tracks. While doing so, I found that any corner under 90 degrees ruts very quickly. This is not as much of a problem on a paved surface. But it illustrates that all the corner does is funnel racers into one line.
The section that meanders toward the sea is nothing but a long narrow, somewhat speed limited, straight with no passing.
Good analysis. I thought the track looked too fast … the shallow turns, as you said, won’t help the racing IMO.
Go to see a race? I want to move there. 👍
It looks fast and exciting.
Beautiful place and the track looks great. Would be a blast to ride.
What sucks is the outward facing stands in many places and all the trees and hotels and villas in the middle of the track that will block the view of all but the corner you’re standing on. It’s lot of money to get there, buy a ticket and only see 1 or 2 corners at a time.
While I’ve been to Indy, Austin and Laguna, a couple times, I never regretted saying that I’ve done it and I’ll never go again. The view on the television is so much better. The only thing that sucks about it is the commentators yakking away rather than hearing the bikes. However, you do get other info like who crashed out when they’re not in the front group that the camera is only following.
Man, that looks like a nice place to go see some races, if covid is ever brought under control. Indonesians being flat out motorcycle crazy, as well as youthful enough to realistically be considered “the future” of the sport, sure don’t hurt, either.