The proposed South African round of the 2014 World Superbike Championship has been cancelled after the Phakisa Freeway circuit in Welkom failed to meet the required standard for FIM homolgation in time.

South Africa was due to host the penultimate round of the 2014 season on October 18-19 marking a return to the country that last hosted a WSBK event in 2009 at Kyalami.

However, with this year’s round scheduled to be held at Phakisa Freeway in Welkom – which hasn’t hosted an international sporting event since 2004 -, the FIM and Dorna have confirmed that efforts to bring the venue up to the standard required to achieve homologation has not been met.

As such, the event has been cancelled with Dorna stating it is now seeking for a venue to replace it, with Brno in the Czech Republic emerging as a possibility.

Should the event not be replaced, the remainder of the 2014 season will be contested over just three more rounds at Jerez, Magny-Cours and Qatar, the latter of which was also confirmed on the calendar update.

Welkom’s removal from the 2014 calendar comes after the Russian WSBK round at the Moscow Raceway was also canned as a result of ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The Russian event was not replaced.

Meanwhile, the FIM and Dorna have confirmed that the final round of the 2014 WSBK will be held at the Losail circuit in Qatar and be the series’ first-ever night-time race.

Having been labelled as ‘TBC’ on the 2014 calendar for several months , organisers have now firmed up plans for Qatar to represent the 2014 season finale on November 2nd as expected, marking a return to the schedule for the circuit which hosted WSBK rounds between 2005 and 2009.

However, whilst those events took place during the day, this year’s event will be the first-ever WSBK round to take place under floodlights.

Bringing WSBK further into line with MotoGP, which has its Qatari event also held under floodlights, the event will host the final rounds of both WSBK and WSS.

Photo courtesy Gareth Harford