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This times opening race at the Losail International circuit Qatar, situated bang in the middle of a desert and brilliantly light by those 3600 flood lights packed quiet a few surprises and not just for the motor sport fans.

Rains’ falling in Qatar is something that happens for just 8 days in a whole year and it happened to rain last weekend during the race! Even during the official testing session held last month the heavens had opened up to leave the riders and pit crew waiting anxiously in their garages to continue their tests.

The 125cc class race started without the smallest hitch, but soon just after four laps the red flags were waved as the tracks was suddenly flooded (considering that just 1 cm of rain is literally floods in Qatar) by the unexpected rains. As usual only half the points were awarded, Andrea Iannone leads the pack with 12.5 points. Though this being his shortest sweetest victory ever, I’m sure he must be wishing at some level for a full length race.

The 250cc & the 800cc class race still to happen and the 125cc red flagged in just 4 laps, it was difficult to predict what was going to happen. No one wants to see a race get cancelled that too the first one of 2009.

As soon as the rain stopped, Valentino Rossi was out in the BMW safety car analysing the track to determine if it was safe enough for the 250cc riders to go out, the reflection of lights on the standing water and wet track surface is a tricky thing to race with. Eventually the track dried up faster than expected and what we had was a clean surface with some sand the rains had got along. And it was worth the wait.

For me the 250cc race is more of a spectacle than the 800cc one, yes that’s exactly what I just said and that’s because the teens riding those two-stroke machines have far too much balls to chuck their bikes in the smallest of gaps to get that better position. Not that the big boys don’t race anymore, the smaller capacity bikes offer much more room for the rider to push them a little more harder, take that lean angle just a little bit more further and that’s whats makes it exciting. Eventually Hector Barbera won the race, former world champion Marco Simoncelli wasn’t racing, which otherwise I’m sure we would had seen him on podium.

Then it was time for the faster bikes to roll out, and they did. Lined up on the grid and once again the rains came lashing down. The race was postponed to Monday, and what a nice decision that was for us. I mean who wants to see a wet race in the night; once again that flexibility is something that Formula 1 teams can’t have.

The Monday Moto GP race:

A little preview, Casey Stoner holds the track record here at Qatar, which has been beaten by himself twice AND has won this GP for the last two times, Rossi, Pedrosa and Stoner had a fantastic battle in 08 but eventually the Ozzie won it. Certainly the Stoner+Ducati combination seems to work here.

This year with quiet a few radical changes (which is very unlike Ducati) to his GP9 machine featuring a new chassis and a carbon fiber swingarm (now why haven’t the Japanese thought of it) it was clear in the qualifying session that beating Stoner here this season would be a task even for the almighty Rossi, and so it was!

Stoner had the perfect launch off the line, gaining precious seconds instantly. Lorenzo was quicker than team mate Rossi and soon was eyeing for the 1st position, when suddenly Rossi played his trump card of the left turn overtaking and passed Lorenzo. All this happened on the first lap and by now Stoner was rocketing away with a full 2 sec lead over Rossi.

Here onwards Stoner was in a different race altogether and defined the word consistency by lapping the circuit with a constant pace that no one was able to play catch up with.



Capirossi who started the race in 4th position whilst trying to keep Colin Edwards at bay crashed badly and later felt sorry for ruining it. Colin Edwards later went on to finish in the 4th place, that’s quiet an achievement for the American riding the Tech 3 Yamaha machine.

Somewhere in the middle of 10th lap when Pedrosa riding the Repsol Honda RCV 212V machine with a recently operated left knee trying to maintain his position at 8th place was hit by DeAngelis when the later tried to pass him, on Pedrosa’s left side of the bike. Imagine a 150kg bike with a rider travelling at around 200 kmph hitting you on one side when you are trying too doing the same, only with a injured left knee. God must have foreseen this and didn’t let the Spaniard fall off. Otherwise it was definitely game over for him.

By lap 13 the tyres had started to wear and we were into uncharted territory of tyre performance, as I have been trying to say this in previous articles, the falling track temperature, the increasing tyre temperature & wear along with the desert sand will have some unknown effects. It was evident with Rossi’s lap times now reducing as his M1 was not particularly well setup for the track with the Bridgestone’s. Stoner has a lead of over 3.3 seconds now; somehow the conditions were just not affecting his bike.

Usually the satellite teams in motogp do not go faster than the factory teams for what ever reason, but Colin Edwards riding his Tech 3 Yamaha had no such thing against him. It was a very comfortable for him to go past Dovizioso who rides the Repsol Honda’s technical marvel RCV 212. Dovizioso later admitted that eh was facing so irregularities with his bike and was not able to dive into the corners as he used to during testing and qualifying, he was forced to use the ‘rear slide’ method which resulted in excessive tyre wear for him.

Lap 13, by now the race leader was maintaining his pace & Rossi was now loosing time with the gaps reaching 3.3 seconds between him and Stoner.

A quick onboard camera view of Stoner revealed just how good a job the Australian was doing, the Ducati GP9 was blistering fast, did anyone notice the distinct sound it makes compared to the other machines, in my opinion it’s no less than a rocket on two wheels reaching 330 kmph ont he start/finish straight.

3 laps to go and Stoner was a mighty 5.3 seconds ahead of the reigning world champion. And so the chequered flag greets him as he crosses the line with the front up in the air, I wish there were cameras inside the riders helmet just to see the kinda smile this hatrick must have put on his face. Fastest in testing, fastest in practice, fastest in qualifying and fastest in the race as well. What a fabulous beginning for the 2007 champion.

Could this mark the end of Rossi’s domination in the sport, well we thought the same in 2007 as well and were proved wrong last year. Rossi was pretty happy about the result and so was Fiat Yamaha with both the riders finishing on podium.

We all are often used to watching really close battles in motogp. This one was an eye opener for anyone who does not belong to the Ducati team. The result was expected to be like this, but such a performance gap was no ones bet!

Race Result:

	Rider		Nation	Points
1	STONER	Casey	AUS	25
2	ROSSI	Valentino	ITA	20
3	LORENZO	Jorge	SPA	16
4	EDWARDS	Colin	USA	13
5	DOVIZIOSO	Andrea	ITA	11
6	DEANGELIS	Alex	RSM	10
7	VERMEULEN	Chris	AUS	9
8	KALLIO	Mika	FIN	8
9	ELIAS	Toni	SPA	7
10	DEPUNIET	Randy	FRA	6
11	PEDROSA	Dani	SPA	5
12	HAYDEN	Nicky	USA	4
13	GIBERNAU	Sete	SPA	3
14	MELANDRI	Marco	ITA	2
15	TAKAHASHI	Yuki	JPN	1

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