The 2003 World Championship starts this weekend in Japan with Repsol riders as favourites.
Valentino Rossi in MotoGP, Fonsi Nieto and Toni Elias in 250 GP, and Dani Pedrosa in 125 GP will take the start as title candidates in their respective categories.
Suzuka will be giving the start to the 2003 World Championship this weekend. With only a few days left for the commence of the most important motorcycle championship of the world – the Formula 1 Championship has already staged two Grand Prix -, the are several things unknown with regard to what will happen in this first clash. Starting with the largest cylinder capacity and premier category, the most outstanding issue in MotoGP will be the expected duel between the crowned kind, Repsol rider Valentino Rossi, and the pack of rivals who have prepared their assault on the title with an intense preseason. Alex Barros, Max Biaggi, Loris Capirossi and other ‘veterans’ of the category will make things difficult for Valentino Rossi this season. But the young Italian star has the advantage of counting on all the necessary means to repeat last season’s deed. And while Rossi is carefully preparing his strategy for 2003, his team-mate and Rookie in the category, the North American Nicky Hayden, knows perfectly well that this will be a season of suffering. He has no experience at Grand Prix but he arrived in Suzuka looking forward to the start of the season and ready to progress step by step, race after race.
In the 250 GP category, the confrontation of the two Repsol riders Fonsi Nieto and Toni Elias on the track is expected to be one of the big attractions of the season, though we should not forget the Frenchman Randy De Puniet, Poggiali in his rookie season, the Italian Rolfo and the Argentinean YPF rider Sebastián Porto. And while these riders will be fighting for victory, there will be Joan Olivé and Héctor Faubel learning as much as they can embedded in Jorge Martínez Aspar’s Junior Team, looking forward to make the most of the chance they have been given.
And last but not least, the 125 GP category with Dani Pedrosa starting as the favourite for the title, although in a category like this, where over a dozen riders are able to win a race, any mistake may be extremely expensive with regard to the end of the season. Besides Pedrosa, there are two other Repsol riders among the group of those capable to win a Grand Prix: Pablo Nieto and Héctor Barberá, two names that were already known last season and may become protagonists this season as well.
