KUALA LUMPUR: From a sensational Sunday in Argentina, the World Motorcycle Championship has been thrown into a logistics nightmare, with 280 riders and crew left stranded along with two charter flightloads of equipment, during the transfer from Buenos Aires to Austin, United States yesterday.
Malaysia's Moto3 Grand Prix of Argentine winner Khairul Idham Pawi is among those affected, having arrived in Austin to find all his Honda Team Asia equipment held up along with the majority of teams due various issues from security clearances, weather and technical glitches conspiring to bring about the biggest logistical controversy in the MotoGP era.
Sources reveal that due to the glitch, the Grand Prix of the Americas, scheduled to start on Friday, may have its race day rescheduled to Monday from Sunday, with as yet no certainty over when the equipment will arrive.
Assurances though have been given that two charter flights being held up will arrive in Austin early tomorrow morning.
This would still result in a frantic rush for equipment and the paddock to be set up in time for Friday morning's practice, with the majority of Moto2 and all Moto3 teams left stranded.
The New Straits Times has received copies of documents confirming the scale of the problem, which has seen DriveM7-SIC Racing Team's Adam Norrodin also left stranded in Argentina, along with all the team's equipment.
Apparently, one charter flight which left the Tucuman airport in Argentina was not allowed to land in Houston due to security reasons as the airport was not cleared by the United States authorities as a port of embarkation for US-bound flights, and was thus redirected back to Argentina.
But then, upon approach on its return, the Tucuman airport itself faced a technical glitch with runway lights failing and the aircraft was redirected to Santiago, Chile.
The plane, designated as Charter 4, also had to divert to Santiago, but then the aircraft itself came down with technical issues.
"If this fault is serious, then Charter 1 may head back to Tucuman for the remaining freight. The estimated schedule for this flight arriving will be around noon Wednesday, meaning the freight from this charter will not be at the circuit until about 4pm," a Dorna circular read.
Among the teams affected by the Charter 4 technical glitch are Khairul Idham's Honda Team Asia Moto3, the SAG Team Moto2, Tasca Scuderia Moto2, Aspar Mahindra Moto3, Estrella Galicia Moto3 and the BRA Racing Moto3 outfits.
The first and second charter flights that ferried equipment of rights holders Dorna and the International Racing Teams Association (IRTA), as well as most MotoGP teams have arrived at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, via Houston from Argentina.
MotoGP teams Aprilia Gresini, Avintia and Marc VDS have their equipment stranded with the rest of the bandwagon on board Charter 3, which along with Charter 4 includes the remaining Moto2 and Moto3 teams.
The latest circular from Dorna revealed that weather conditions in Tucuman resulted in the charters redirected to Santiago, Chile and held up overnight, resulting in another delay that will see the remaining charters arrive in Austin only at 9am tomorrow morning, at the earliest.
As of 7.30pm today, riders and crew from Charter 3 travelled by bus from Tucuman to Cordoba, where they arrived at about 7.30pm Malaysian time. They were scheduled to board a commercial flight to Buenos Aires, from where they would board another commercial flight to Houston tomorrow morning.