Kiwi Roaming

Months after buying our tickets race day was here! November 9th 2025, the Portuguese round of MotoGP in Portimão – yay. It’s the 2nd to last round and MotoGP and Moto3 are both decided but not Moto2. Championship winner Marc Márquez has been out for weeks with injury, but It’s Miguel Oliveira’s final MotoGP race at home and he’s the only Portuguese rider.

You might not be interested in Motorbike racing and to be fair it’s not my sport, but we had a fantastic time, it was fascinating and an awesome experience. We angst over whether to drive or take the shuttle bus but after seeing the queue on Saturday (sprint race day) and after our San Marino bus experience we decided to drive which was the right choice for sure. Google took us a really weird route but we were in a constant flow of traffic and as we progressed we started to see more and more police officers controlling the traffic on bikes, horses, foot. All armed so nobody messes with them so traffic flowed perfectly.

After driving cross country into a massive carpark we walked with the throngs of people over to the circuit. I wanted to buy Steve a replacement VR46 cap after he lost the one I bought at Philip Island so we popped to the merch tents and got a great one which had sold out by the time we returned post racing. Then up into the main grandstand. Steve bought us the best tickets, honestly the best. 3rd row, upper grandstand opposite the Ducati and VR46 racing garages – we could see Pecco and Digi sitting in their seats waiting for the race to start, we were that close! It was awesome.

Sooooo much more happens in the grandstand than when you are anywhere else on the circuit. Not only the start / finish line and main straight during the races but so much entertainment. There was literally no downtime in the 6 hours we were there – the rider parade where the riders are loaded onto a flatbed truck and go round the track firing t-shirts into the crowd, while they were away we had a stunt bike display. Then between races spectators who paid a fortune go out for a flying lap on the back of a Moto-E bike. There was a DJ, we watched the TV crews walking along interviewing the teams, the bikes being prepared, the safety cars coming in and out, helicopters going up and down, drones flying along, the fireworks folks preparing, the marshals and pit board people doing things, Alex Márquez’s team out celebrating his sprint win (next to Pecco’s garage so right across from us) – honestly no down time.

Then for Oliveira’s farewell they pulled out all the stops. He stood out in front of the other riders for a show, then the anthem, then a flyby from the airforce, the crowd chanted and sang for him and his wee daughter brought him out a Portuguese flag – he cried then – to parade up and down the straight. The crowd love him so it was really special to be there.

The racing was amazing, we could see virtually the whole track from our seats and oh the noise! everyone around us had ear plugs but we forgot ours. Compared with Italy the crowd was very chill but they did sing and chant a lot and a huge group of Italian VR46 supporters who were up behind us enjoyed singing the Italian National Anthem when Marco Bezzecchi won. Pecco cut a lonely figure walking back after he came off but he did wave to the crowd which was lovely.

After each race we were also opposite where the winning bikes come into pit lane to celebrate and where they go up above for prize giving. The crowd was light until 2 mins before the Moto2 race, then really filled up for the Oliveira celebrations and the MotoGP race but then they all left! it was crazy how few people (like maybe 50,000 instead of 100,000) stayed for Moto3.

There is a kiwi in Moto3, Cormac Buchanan who had been doing really well then got injured so was just back from injury and didn’t do so well but it was absolutely awesome to be there to support him. Go Kiwi.

We’ve been to big events before eg: many Field Days and leaving Mystery Creek can take hours, this was the opposite. The Police managed the pedestrians returning to their cars and the cars leaving the track with precision, and then we found ourselves on the motorway which was all lanes in one direction and moved so much traffic in no time. We were home in less than an hour, as Steve said we took over an hour to get out of the carpark paddock at Mystery Creek one year – NZ could learn something about traffic management from the Portuguese.

Best day out. So worth it.