Sebastian Porto and Ruben Xaus fly over Qatar.
New victory for the Argentinean rider in the 250cc and superb podium finish for Rubén Xaus in MotoGP.
The first Grand Prix of Qatar will be remembered for a long time as a surprising, some times disconcerting and always exciting race weekend, especially in the 250cc and MotoGP classes.
The morning began already with excitement in the premier class after the Race Direction gave notice about a six seconds penalty on the grid positions of Valentino Rossi and Max Biaggi. Both riders were penalised because their teams had cleaned the track area were they were going to the start so their rear tyres wouldn’t skid. Thus the race had already a bad start for the leader of the overall standings. But a very good start allowed Rossi to reach the end of the main straight already in eighth position. However, his hasty recovery took him to enter a corner with too much speed and hit Repsol Honda Team rider Alex Barros. Barros, who started from second, didn’t make a good start and was fifth when he suffered the incident with Rossi. Despite loosing some places, the Brazilian rider kept on fighting to recover and get closer to the leading pack, Checa and Gibernau. However, the oil lost by Nakano’s Kawasaki who was riding ahead of him, sent him off the track and despite rejoining the race, he was seventeenth after the fourth lap. From that moment until the chequered flag, Barros recovered positions until finishing fourth. Repsol rider Rubén Xaus finished one place ahead of him, thus completing a superb weekend and an incredible race. The class Rookie started from seventh place and put himself among the top five. He had won the fight for the fourth place against Melandri when suddenly Checa, who was third, was forced to retire, allowing him to take the chequered flag on a valuable third place. First podium for a satisfied Rubén Xaus in MotoGP. Nicky Hayden, the other rider of the Repsol Honda Team, had not a good day in Qatar. Fourth on the starting grid, the North American rider made a bad start but recovered until finally finishing fifth.
In the 250cc, Sebastián Porto keeps the options to fight for the World Championship title thanks to the excellent race made today. Fastest in both qualifying practices on Thursday and Friday, the Repsol rider focussed today on making his race. He made a good start and despite being overtaken by Pedrosa on the first lap, Porto took back the lead on the second lap and from then on he went opening a small gap lap by lap. Pedrosa and Porto, were joined by De Angelis who also managed to escape from the rest of the pack but had to retire later on due to a mechanical problem which made him miss an almost secure podium finish. Sebastián Porto finally won the race, with an advantage of one and a half second over the second qualified, Pedrosa, while the third place was taken by the Japanese rider Aoyama. Fonsi Nieto, who started from the eighth position of the grid rode an almost solitary race and finished fifth.
Incredible and surprising race finish in the minor class, with Dovizioso and Lorenzo crossing the finish line together and the victory having to be decided by photo-finish. The monitors showed a difference of 0.000 seconds between them at the end of the race and the Race Direction was forced to find the answer to the question who had won the race with the photo-finish system. It confirmed, that the victory of the race had been taken by Lorenzo. It was however a hard race for the Repsol riders. Pablo Nieto, who started from the sixth place on the grid, kept his position after the start, but quickly noticed that he wouldn’t be able to fight for the victory today. Nieto lost contact with the leading group and had to settle for the fight for the sixth place. The front pack, made up by Lorenzo, Dovizioso, Stoner -who later had to retire due to mechanical problems -, Bautista, Kallio and Lai opened a gap with regard to the rest of the pack which became definitive. Nieto managed to win his fight and finished sixth ahead of Simón, Borsoi, Pasini, Giansanti and Jenkner. Sergio Gadea, who started nineteenth, finished eighteenth, unfortunately not being able to score this time.
