The new Grand Prix of Qatar will be the start of the transoceanic trip of the 2004 World Championship.
In three weeks, the World Championship will be visiting Qatar, Malaysia and Australia. Sebastián Porto, ready for the final fight for the 250cc title.
Three weeks and three races, this is the incredible final pace of the 2004 World Championship with three different continents hosting the Grand Prix of Qatar, Malaysia and Australia. Valencia, on October 31, will set the full stop to one of the most exciting and frantic World Championships of recent times. The race will be staged next Saturday on this new track, featuring a long straight and a combination of fast corners, with a total length of 5,400 metres. Nicky Haydens elimination in the first corner after the multiple crash during the Japanese Grand Prix and Alex Barros fourth place were far off the mark the Repsol Honda Team had set themselves for Motegi. For Qatar, the most honoured team of all times in the World Championship is hoping to see its riders fighting from the beginning for the leading positions. On a circuit where all riders will be starting under equal conditions its the first time all of them are going to lap there Hayden hopes to arrive almost completely recovered from his collarbone and knee injury while practising Supermotard before the Portuguese Grand Prix. His team-mate Alex Barros knows that he has to improve his position on the grid to be able to be fighting for the victory in the leading group from the very start. In the latest races he has shown that hes got the right pace for it, but his back grid positions set him back from the beginning. Rubén Xaus, will be more than ever on equal conditions with the rest of his grid companions, although he insists in the fact that the mechanical differences are still there.
In the 250cc, Sebastián Porto will have to play his last cards and risk it all if he wants to come back to Europe with options to fight for his first World Championship title. It is a difficult aim, he knows it and his team does, but there are still 100 points at stake and, although the difference after the victory of the overall leader Dani Pedrosa in Motegi and Portos fourth place is of 48 points, there are still mathematical possibilities to make it. Qatar is a mystery for all of us, but then there will be two circuits, which are favourable for the Aprilias, and Porto will have to make good use of this advantage to shorten the gap in the general standings. And whilst Sebastián Porto will be playing his last cards in the fight for the title, his team-mate Fonsi Nieto is focussed on his own aim of getting a place on the podium and a good result for the end of the season that will make him forget the bad feelings after the last races, where crashes and retirements hindered him from finishing a race since the British Grand Prix, where Fonsi finished fifth. After his retirement from the last Japanese Grand Prix due to problems with the tyres, Pablo Nieto will be trying to make up for the bad result this weekend in Qatar and to keep on fighting to get the so longed for first victory of the season in the 125cc class. Fifth in the overall standings, the youngest of the Nieto clan is 42 points behind the third place, which are enough for him to fight in the last four races in order to move up some places. His team-mate Sergio Gadea, on the contrary to all the other Grand Prix of the season, arrives in Qatar in equal conditions with his rivals who dont know the track either. This situation allows him to be optimistic and stick to his clear aim of scoring some more points. The six points scored in the last two Grand Prix thirteenth in Portugal and Japan -, should have increased once Sergio is back in Europe in three weeks time.
