Takaaki Nakagami tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday right before the Japanese racer was scheduled to fly from Spain to Argentina. However, MotoGP shipping delays played in the rider’s favor and after a few negative COVID-19 results, Nakagami will saddle up this weekend in Argentina.
At first, Nakagami got a positive COVID-19 PCR test on Monday. He was asymptomatic and produced positive results from subsequent tests. Following the initial result, Nakagami continued to test every two days since Monday, and he has thankfully returned several negative results. He was advised by doctors to keep testing in the next few days.
Because of this, and due to the race weekend delays, Nakagami is set to race for Honda in Argentina and is at the paddock for the weekend to kick off. It can be inferred that the shipping delays in the race weekend played to Nakagami's favor and bought him some extra time to get the flight to Argentina just in time for the race weekend.
“Early this week before flying to Argentina, Taka tested positive, but with high CT value which indicates low viral charge and he was asymptomatic.
“It was decided, together with our medical consultant, to repeat the test every couple of days.
“Nakagami has now returned a number of negative tests and will be arriving to the paddock on Saturday morning in time for the beginning of track action as agreed with IRTA and Dorna.”
It was rather opportune that a shipping delay caused by a faulty valve in the cargo plane’s engine caused the race weekend to be pushed back. Qualifying for the Argentinian GP was postponed and rescheduled to 5:05 p.m. local time. The delay caused several teams to be bikeless, like Gresini Racing and VR46, but the plane arrived and race officials were able to kick off the weekend as per their last update about a day ago.
For Sunday, the race times will remain the same, but the warm-up sessions are now 40 minutes instead of the usual 20 minutes.
