High temperatures continue at the Qatar Grand Prix.
The heat and the desert sand will play the leading role this weekend. After the Malayan round, the Repsol riders are now focussed on the new challenge at the Losail circuit.
After the two consecutive Grand Prix in Japan and Malaysia, the Motorcycle World Championship has now moved right away to Qatar, in the Middle East, the last round before a short break to face the final straight of the championship. Despite the thousands of kilometres travelled, time changes and hard working days without hardly any rest, the teams are looking forward to the fourteenth Grand Prix of the season, given the fact that it’s an almost new circuit where only the MotoGP riders have been able to lap during the preseason after last year’s race. Losail International Circuit will host for the second time in its history a round of the World Championship. Although this year’s MotoGP crown has already been awarded, it may be the venue of another step forward for Repsol rider Dani Pedrosa heading for his second world title in the quarter-of-a-litre class.
In the MotoGP class, Nicky Hayden arrives at the Arabian circuit with the intention of making up for the bad feeling after missing the podium in Sepang only a couple of days ago. Last year, the young Repsol rider did not really feel comfortable on this circuit. He took the start from the second row of the grid, fourth fastest, and although he fell back to tenth in the first lap, he improved during the race finally finishing fifth. Sixth in the overall standings, the young North-American is only eight points from the third classified, Loris Capirossi, and twenty-five points behind his team-mate Max Biaggi, who is second. The experienced Italian rider was one of the main characters of the 2004 GP. Biaggi was penalised with six seconds for cleaning his place on the grid, thus dropping back to the last place for the start. Starring a spectacular recovery, the Roman rider managed to finish sixth. Despite not being able to solve the problems he’s been having since the start of the season, the Italian rider will be working hard to take his RC211V to the highest step of the podium.
Sebastián Porto was the great dominator of the first ever Qatar Grand Prix in the 250cc class. The Argentinean rider was fastest in the qualifying sessions, allowing him to take the pole; and he was also the first to cross the finish line after the race. The Repsol rider lead the event from beginning to end, and handed over the lead only during the first lap of the race to Dani Pedrosa. The Catalan rider, starting from second, was the only rider capable of following Porto’s pace, but took the chequered flag behind the Argentinean. Third was Aoyama who finished 43 seconds behind Porto. Randy De Puniet started from the fourth place of the front row, but lost four places at the start. While he was remounting, he suffered a crash that forced him to retire after the fifth lap. The riders of the Repsol Aspar Team, Porto and De Puniet, showed in Malaysia that they are getting back to their best shape after finishing third and fourth respectively. If the mechanical aspects do their job, we will surely see Aspar’s pupils fighting again for the leading positions in Losail. Pedrosa, who suffered his first crash of the year in Sepang is still recovering from the injury in his left shoulder, but will give it all in Qatar to get a little bit closer to him aim: the 250cc World Championship title.
After missing the podium by two tenths a few days ago at the Malaysian Grand Prix after a brilliant recovery, Héctor Faubel arrives in Qatar highly motivated. Although he could not finish the race last year due to a crash while being sixth, the rider from Valencia was very happy with the track layout and hopes to keep those good feelings, this time on his 125cc Aprilia.
Repsol rider´s comments:
MotoGP. Nicky Hayden:
‘I remember Qatar as a pretty strange country from our visit last year – way different from where I come from – but I kinda’ liked it. I’m going to have to get into the sprit of the place as soon as we arrive as I think I’m down to be doing some camel riding and having some henna tattoos as part of the Dorna pre-event publicity that we all have to do from GP to GP. Should be fun. As for the track, I struggled there last year and never felt that comfortable from the start. We’ve moved on as team a lot and we have a real tight group of guys at the moment and I’m sure we can come up with something that should feel good round there. Gotta’ keep up the pressure for the rest of the season. I don’t want to be finishing were I am now in sixth. I’m only 25 points behind second place and that’s where I’m aiming with 100 points still to play for.’
MotoGP. Max Biaggi:
‘Last year I remember we had the stupid incident where I had to start the race from the back of the grid. The whole weekend up to this point had been not so good anyway. We couldn’t find the best set-up for the machine and we could only get on the third row of the grid. With the penalty I had to start from the back and went from 24th position to 6th place at the end of the race. I go there with high expectation but it is not easy at the moment. The situation in the championship table looks better than it is. We have second place in the championship even though we struggle at nearly every track this year. I can only dream about where we might be if things had gone well. However I never give up and will be looking to work hard with my team to get the machine to work well for the race next week.’
250. Sebastián Porto:
‘I’m in much better spirits for this next race and Qatar is a track where I did quite well. We took the victory last year, so is there anything better than repeating a result like that? The most important would be to get a good setting from the first day to be in the front. Malaysia, Qatar and Australia are circuits I like a lot, and which adapt very well to the conditions of the Aprilia. The most important will be taking that little step forward we need to be on the same level as the other Aprilias. If we manage to do so, we’ll be in the front in the next races.’
250. Randy De Puniet:
‘I was looking forward to stepping on the podium; the weekend had been fine. The engine worked more or less well during the race but I had a problem two laps before the end of the race and there was nothing I could do. Now I only think about Qatar, a favourable track for the Aprila, where my team took the victory last year, so we’ll be starting from a good base. I didn’t do good practices there and crashed during the race, but I hope to do better this year.’
250. Dani Pedrosa:
‘We’ve had two really complicated weeks. I was physically limited in Japan although I finally managed to do a good race, and in Malaysia, I still wasn’t able to ride at a 100% and the crash in the second lap left us without scoring any point for the first time in the season. The rest days in Malaysia were good for my shoulder and I hope that these days before the practice session on Thursday in Qatar will finally help me to forget about the pain in the shoulder to be able to give it all again. Let’s see if we manage to be in the front right from the start to have again a complete weekend. It’s a track were the temperatures are very high, I actually had a bad time last year due to the heat, and, as regards the bike, we cannot forget that the front tyre suffers a lot.’
125. Héctor Faubel:
‘Qatar is a track I like, the practices last year were quite good and I crashed during the race lapping sixth. In addition, after the Malaysian and Japanese GP I feel strong and motivated. It will also be a hard weekend due to the heat, but we’ll give our very best to get back on the podium. I don’t want to miss it for some thousands of a second this time.’
The venue of the GP:
LOSAIL CIRCUIT(www.qatargp.net)
Small sized country – it covers e.g. only one third of the Belgian territory-, Qatar is surrounded almost completely by the sea and is located in the Arabian Gulf. It borders to the south with Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates and to the north-west with Bahrain. With a rather flat terrain, the entire country is approx. 240 km from north to south, less than 160 km wide and has a surface of 11.5 sq km. The actual population is estimated at 700,000 inhabitants, most of which live in Doha, the capital city. The Islam is the official religion of the country and the Sharia (Islamic law) the main source of legislation in the country. Arabic is the official language although English is widely used. Qatar enjoys sunshine just about every day of the year regardless of the season.
It has a deserted climate with hot summer seasons, where temperatures fluctuate between 25 and 46 degrees Celsius, and relatively warm winters. It hardly ever rains and never more than 75.2 mm a year. Its natural surrounding and monuments, together with high-level business, sports, restaurants, shopping facilities and hotels turn Qatar into the perfect door to the Arabian Gulf.Doha, administrative and commercial centre, does not only host the international airport, but also the port, several hotels and sports facilities. Located around a beautiful bay, its cosmopolite spirit stands out due to its perfect balance with its rich cultural and religious heritage. Qatar has a rich and vibrant history. A history that can be traced back as far as 4000 BC.
Throughout the centuries, the fishing and pearling trades have established Qatar as an important port in the Gulf. With the expansion and growth of its oil and gas industry, the port and the country maintain their international importance. The Qatar government is hereditary and His Royal Highness Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, is the current head of state. When he came to power in 1995, he brought a modern and positive approach that transformed the country into an ideal host for major sporting events, international conferences, as well as a luxurious tourist destination.
The people of Qatar are friendly and make visitors feel very welcome.Located 20 km north from Doha, the Losail circuit set a milestone in the 2004 season, hosting the first Motorcycling World Championship Grand Prix in the Middle East. The first stone was laid in December 2003 and the track was built in record time. It cost 58 million dollars and its infrastructures fulfil the highest quality and safety standards, meeting the homologation requirements of the FIM. The first rider to lap on the Qatar layout was Randy Mamola, who made an exhibition on a Ducati at the official inauguration of the circuit in July 2004.The 5,380 metres long circuit is made up by a series of linked, high-speed corners. On its 1.068 km straight, the bikes reach speeds of 330 km/h. Its 16 corners 10 right-handers and 6 left-handers, make it very important to get a good set-up of the bike’s front end.
Although it was designed and built to become a fluid, technical and safe track, the Losail circuit is located in the middle of the desert, implying lots of sand. In order to fight-off the sand on the track, the designers built a perimeter of artificial grass to stop the sand from being blown onto the asphalt. The fact of being completely new asphalt, dirty, without any rubber on the surface and the inevitable sand, the lack of grip played one of the leading roles in the 2004 event, together with the high temperatures, around 40 degrees Celsius, and the high humidity level. Fortunately, since no single-seater races are staged in Losail, it doesn’t have the typical bumps created by them; although it has large run-off areas, which were with no doubt designed looking forward to staging Formula 1 races in the future.
The race is staged on Saturday, just like in Holland, because it’s the rest day according to Islamic religion. The presence of the Qatar Grand Prix in the World Championship calendar is secured until the 2008 season, so we will not have to wait too long to see the track records broken, which right now are held by Jorge Lorenzo (125cc, 2’09.569), Alex De Angelis (250cc, 2’03.015) and Colin Edwards (MotoGP, 1’59.293).
