MotoGP to race in Kazakhstan
2023 marks the start of a new five-year deal that sees MotoGP touch down in a new region of the world as the stunning Sokol International Racetrack joins the calendar.
Located just outside Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, Sokol is a brand-new motorsport complex constructed in the heart of Central Asia.
The region will be a new pitstop for MotoGP as the sport continues to expand around the world, engaging with new markets and fanbases.
Kazakhstan will also become the 30th country to host a motorcycle Grand Prix since 1949, a perfect landmark number to celebrate the ever-expanding history of the world’s first motorsport World Championship, and Sokol International Racetrack will be the 74th venue to host a premier class Grand Prix.
Kazakhstan is a large land-locked country that shares borders with Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and China. It is also not far from the territorial war underway right now in Ukraine.
Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In 2020, Freedom House rated Kazakhstan as a “consolidated authoritarian regime”, stating that freedom of speech is not respected and “Kazakhstan’s electoral laws do not provide for free and fair elections.
Many people first heard of Kazakhstan in the comedy movie ‘Borat’, where actor Sacha Baron Cohen played the part of Borat Sagdiyev, a fictional reporter from Kazakhstan, and essentially took the mickey out of the place. After first taking umbrage at the way the country was portrayed and banning the movie, the Kazakhstan Government eventually used ‘Very Nice’ in their tourism campaigns after they realised that Borat put the country on the map for many people, and thus tourism boomed.
