A few minutes before 11pm (10pm in Spain), when the motorbikes were ready to start the race and the race officials were about to flag the warm-up lap, rain began to fall again at the circuit of Losail. The first raindrops immediately stopped the protocol that was being followed before the start of the first race of the MotoGP season, and so the riders retired to their respective pits. A few minutes later the storm intensified flooding the track completely and obliging the race directors to cancel the race.
Rain had already caused the 125cc race to be abandoned when the riders had only completed four laps. A little while later the rain had stopped, and so shortly afterwards and within the established time, the 250cc race began. This had been shortened to just 13 laps so as to respect the scheduled time for the MotoGP race. Then just a few minutes before the start of the race in the top category, a few more drops of rain began to fall, these were followed by a heavy storm. This obliged the race directors to suspend the race. In the end after a meeting of the race directors which lasted about two hours a decision was taken to jold the Qatar MotoGP on Monday at 21:00 local time after a warm-up at 18:30.
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
“This has been a really strange situation tonight. With such heavy rain it would definitely have been dangerous to ride under the floodlights, so the decision to cancel the race was the right one. At first we thought the race was going to be called off completely and I can’t say that this would have been bad for me personally because my condition is not 100 per cent. But we came to Qatar to race so we’ll come back and go for the maximum result tomorrow.”
Andrea Dovizioso >> Audio
“For all the adrenalin that built up during practice and qualifying to be followed by the cancelled race was a real anti-climax. So I think it’s good that we race tomorrow night. There may be less grip after the rain that fell on the track tonight, but that will be the same for everybody. Also with the tyres, the situation is equal for all the riders. From the team’s point of view, it will be really useful for us to get the race data, so I’m glad we’re coming back tomorrow.”
