Suzuka scraped for next season.

[Winther]

And will first be avaible from 2005 again.

[f1manoz]

I've looked at a few sites but nothing up, where'd you hear this from?

[Barbazza]

The story is here. The FIM released a press release confirming it.
http://www.sportinglife.com/others/n...OTO_Japan.html

[Mark Mitchell]

www.bbc.co.uk

[BootsOntheSide]

Suzuka is a great racetrack for cars, but as it stands it's not safe for bikes, and Japan has lots of other great venues. Going there next year would jsut be too painful.

[CleanTone]

Great great track. Too bad that it is so narrow for cars and so unsafe for bikes. And I'm afraid it is not possible for major improvements to take place

[racer69]

What a joke, the track is fine.

Another overreaction to what was a horrible incident, but this is motorsport.

[f1manoz]

Actually, racer, most of the riders expressed concern about track safety this year. With the speed of the bikes continuing to increase, many tracks deemed safe even five years ago can now be considered unsafe.

There are a few rather dangerous places I can think of right now:

The sweeper down to the Spoon Curve where the barrier is right on the track

The barrier into the chicane where Kato lost his life

The sweepers behind the pits where once again the barrier comes very close to the track at stages

Suzuka is a wonderful, challenging track, and the only thing that does need altering is to move the barriers back. Then it should be fine.

[elephino]

Still sucks that it's been removed.

[gomick]

its a great track - but it is boring , i certainly wont miss it, hopefully f1 can follow the moto gp lead

[elephino]

Boring? No such thing. There are boring races, not boring tracks.

[racer69]

Suzuka is more boring than Motegi???

[TheMan]

We have just had the same problem down here in Australia with the removal of Phillip Island GP circuit from our V8 Supercar series. As most of you probably know The Island is an awesome race track and certainly one of the fastest in Australia. But unfortunately recently a couple of car drivers have died there and therefore being taken off the calender. The track is deemed safe for bikes though and club car racing will still continue there. My point is that all circuits in the world be them slow circuits or fast, face an uphill battle to keep tracks safe each year as development of motorsport continues. The speeds of the bikes and cars increase each year and circuits cannot keep up. Maybe rather than kick circuits off the calender we look at slowing the cars/ bikes down to make them safer. remember that without the race circuits we have no racing, and most circuits cannot afford the money to keep upgrading safety. There would be scarce few that actually run at a profit.

[asha]

Suzuka is a great track, and it is not on the calander next year for the only reason that track alterations wont be finished in time.
From memory, there were more changes planned to the circult before katos horrible crash

[chunder]

It amazes me sometimes. These guys are doing a sport and they know the risks. Why do we have to have such massive upheaval when someone dies. No one has been killed at Suzuka before if I remember. These guys know what they are doing so surely it is up to the people who make the tracks to not sanitise them, just make the run off bigger in certain areas.
Can't believe about Phillip Island, can understand the concern, but again these guys are paid silly money to do this and the whoe point is man against machine and that stuff.
I hope GP doesn't get all silly like F1 did and ruin all the tracks. Watching F1 round places like Hockenheim now is so ****, Imagine GP round Monaco! Will never happen but just picture it!!

[Schummy]

I suppose if they put some soft padding on some exposed walls or barriers the safety will increase. I don't think it is always needed a separation of barriers from tracks, for example in straight zones (i.e. Kato's fatal place), because the impact angle is shallow. There, a "softening" can be sufficient.

I can see a lot of circuit with solid barriers near the track (almost every grand circuit in the start line straight, for example). Shallowness of angle brings safety as oval experience teach us. A head-on accident is very dangerous in terms of G desacceleration (unfamous Monaco chicane is a example). In CART, Gonzalo Rodriguez(sp?) died because a head-on accident against a barrier and Greg Moore died against a far placed wall in the infield, with a violent angle.

Suzuka is a great circuit, safety must be increased, but overreaction should be avoided, IMHO.

[asha]

the problem is suzuka is that the edges of track are right on the edges of the owned land. They have being trying (unsuccessfully) to buy sections of land all around the circult