Location: Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya
In 1989, through the joint collaboration of the Catalan Autonomous Government, the Montmeló Town Council and the Royal Automobile Club of Catalunya (RACC), work began on giving one of Europe’s most beautiful cities a state of the art race track to match. The Circuit de Catalunya opened on the doorstep of Barcelona in September 1991 and welcomed its first international event that same month, hosting the Spanish F1 Grand Prix. It went on to host the European Motorcycle Grand Prix and in 1995 became home to the Gran Premio de Catalunya. Before the start of the 2018 MotoGP season, the circuit underwent a full track resurfacing while key changes were made to increase safety standards. The new developments have seen an extended run-off area at turn 13 of the MotoGP layout which required demolition of two sections of a grandstand with another relocated. The run-off area was filled with gravel and from the braking point it now provide an extra 20 metres of run-off space. The track changes have altered the circuit layout by 28 metres (from 4.655 to 4.627 km) with turn 10 using the smaller F1 corner at La Caixa which was already used in 2016 and 2017.
