Season Opener @ Qatar

[DooberRoni]

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk279/DooberRoni/MotoGP-Qatar-Post.png


This is it Doobers! MotoGP opens the 2009 season at Qatar, under the lights for the second time in history. We've waited and it is finally here so make sure to get your contest entries in before the start of qualifying. We originally were going to close the voting before practice but what the hell.

Casey Stoney has won the last two races in Qatar and Valentino Rossi the two before that. There was only one other which was won by Sete Givupnau.

We will get the Upcoming Events calendar updated today with the times for the live action shown on motogp.com but remember, get your votes in before the entry thread is locked at the start of qually. Vote in the other thread but post away here with your thoughts and hopes and why you voted the way you did.

One last comment before we turn this thread over to you Doobers: SPEEDtv is really going out of their way to show the season opener, eh?

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk279/DooberRoni/VotePost.png (http://www.dooberville.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3211)

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk279/DooberRoni/VotePost.png (http://www.dooberville.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3211)

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk279/DooberRoni/VotePost.png (http://www.dooberville.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3211)

[ÜberDoober]

I voted! (even though I am DQ'd)

I made an early vote without even waiting until practice. This may be a risky strategy or it may be a no brainer? I picked Stoner for everything.

Mostly as a result of pre-season testing and because I expect Casey to be strong out of the box. Rossi can never be counted out, though. :winky:

Beyond the top two, I don't have a clue and am just sort of picking riders out of the air. I would like to put in a vote for Nicky but unfortunately, I just don't think he'll have the pace, at least in the early season. I'd be most pleased if Nicky proves me wrong.

I am so stoked for start of the season! :coolshades:

[DooberRoni]

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk279/DooberRoni/MGP-Time-black.png

Decided to put this here too. Someone please PM me if this is wrong.

<edit 4/7/09>
Updated with correction and slightly less blinding version. Still no 100% confirmation that the days are correct?

[ÜberDoober]

Damn, 'Roni. Could you have made that schedule any brighter/uglier? :coolshades: Sunglasses needed.

[ÜberDoober]

Hahaha! I see a mistake. 250 race is at 2:15PM not 2:15AM. Moran. :smilielol5:

[ÜberDoober]

Yamaha Press Release:


SETUP REPORT
06/04/2009

Fiat Yamaha confident for season opener under the desert lights

Losail International Circuit

The triple-crown winning Fiat Yamaha Team of last year returns to action this weekend for the opening round of the 2009 MotoGP World Championship in Qatar. For the second year in succession the first race will be run under floodlights at the Losail International Circuit in Doha and reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi and last year's Rookie of the Year Jorge Lorenzo will be lining up alongside 16 other riders all out to claim motorcycling's biggest prize.

2008 saw Valentino Rossi return to the top after two difficult years, winning nine races, taking his eighth World Championship and ensuring that Fiat Yamaha took the Teams' title and Yamaha the Manufacturers'. He starts the season on 97 career wins - the second highest total in Grand Prix history - and although the all-time record of 122 wins, held by Giacomo Agostini, still stands some way off, with Rossi already signed with Yamaha for next year it is not too distant a target. The irrepressible Italian turned 30 in February and has put in a strong showing during testing, finishing second in the Jerez 'qualifying' shoot-out. He has two previous wins at the Losail desert track but last year saw him finish fifth, his second worst result of the season, in his first race with Bridgestone tyres. With a successful season on the Japanese rubber already behind him however there is nothing to hold him back this time and he will be out for victory this weekend.

Jorge Lorenzo blasted onto the scene in Qatar last year with a blistering pole position and a mature ride to second, belying his years and the fact that it was his first race in MotoGP. He went on to set successive poles at the next two races before riding to victory at just his third premier class race in Portugal. The middle part of the season saw him run into some difficulties with a couple of spectacular crashes and a series of injuries but he recovered well in the latter stages and took a total of six podiums in the season, enough to secure him the leading rookie title. With a year of experience now under his belt and having shown good form during preseason, including running second fastest at the Qatar test last month, the 21-year-old is undoubtedly a contender for race wins this year.

2009 sees several rule changes brought in, the most major of which is a single-tyre rule with all riders now on Bridgestone tyres. Each rider will have a maximum of twelve rear and eight front tyres per weekend, excluding rain tyres, with just two different compounds available to them at each race. In an effort to reduce engine mileage and therefore costs Friday morning practice has been cancelled and all other practice sessions have been reduced to 45 minutes. Post-race tests have also been outlawed, meaning that last week's test in Jerez was the last chance the teams will have to test this year's bikes outside of a race weekend this season.

The floodlit Qatar circuit features 3,600 light fixtures using 250, 1500 and 2500-watt bulbs and the system needs 13 megawatt generators to produce the required 5.4 million watts of power - creating enough light to cover an area equivalent to 70 football pitches. The bulbs are fixed on 1000 poles with mounting heights from 3 to 36 metres, all linked together by almost 500 kilometres of wire and supported by 300,000 kilos of concrete.

Valentino Rossi - "We're in good shape"
"Qatar isn't one of our strongest tracks but we still have a few cards to play and I hope that a little more work will see us improve for the first race. Tests really mean nothing once you get to raving, the situation is totally different and really we have little idea what will happen until we get there, it's very exciting! I'm feeling confident, we're in good shape even if we're going to what was our worst track during testing, but I am happy about the performance of my M1 in general; Yamaha have done a great job and so this makes me happy. With the new single tyre rule the tactics will become clearer race by race. I think a lot of new factors will come into play and strategy is going to be quite important to determine where you start the race. I think luck will also be a factor in qualifying, more so than previously! In fact, I am quite curious to see what will happen in a 45 minute race with so few tyres, it's going to be interesting. I've used the last week to relax, recharge and train. It's going to be a very long season and we need to be consistently at 100%. We will take it race by race and keep focused on the target, which is of course winning the championship once again."

Jorge Lorenzo - "Eager to start"
"I am feeling good and I'm eager to start the championship. Preseason has been hard work, but finally I understood how to be fast with the new Bridgestone tyres and the last day in Qatar and the test in Jerez have left me feeling confident and hopeful for a good start to the season. The tyres are very different and I have had to adapt my riding style, but step-by-step we have become accustomed to them. For qualifying it's a bit of a pity because I was a rider that was always strong on qualifying tyres, but it's the same for everyone so we will get used to it. I feel much more experienced than this time last year and much stronger as well, even if I was on pole for this race last year! My target for the season is to improve on my fourth position of last year; I want to make sure I improve year by year. The championship is too big to think about yet, for now I am just concentrating on Qatar. I also have a new number, 99, which I think looks good on my M1 and I hope that it will bring me luck!"

Davide Brivio - "Consistency is the key"
"As a team we're very excited to be finally going racing. Valentino has been strong during testing and we're not worried about Qatar, we still have some things to try and we're confident we will be fast enough to challenge there. The new tyre rule is quite exciting, it adds something new to the first race, but we're very confident because we've had a year on the Bridgestones and it's also clear that they've done a good job with the new tyres. It will be strange not having Friday practice, and we will have to make sure we're very focused and concentrated throughout to use the time in the best way. Luckily we have the most experienced team in the paddock! For the season in general, the key to winning the championship will be consistency. Our aim is to start on the right note in Qatar."

Daniele Romagnoli - "A friendly track for us"
"Finally we're approaching the first race and in quite good shape after our reduced winter test time. The main aim of winter testing was to find a good base for the new Yamaha M1 for Jorge and we have managed to do this, so we're confident that we can achieve a good result in Qatar, especially after the last setting changes we made in Jerez. We need to keep working however because it's clear that our rivals are very strong this year. Qatar is a friendly track for us after Jorge's great debut there last year both in qualifying and in the race. I think if we could repeat that then it would be perfect! It's the first time we're racing with the new tyre rule and we're definitely going to need to optimise tyre use especially for qualifying, but it's not a big problem because as I said we already have a good base. The team is excited to be starting again and now we're just waiting for Friday afternoon to get to work!"

Valentino Rossi : Information
Age: 29
Lives: Tavullia, Italy
Bike: Yamaha
GP victories: 97 (71 x MotoGP/500cc, 14 x 250cc, 12 x 125cc)
First GP victory: Czech Republic, 1996 (125cc)
First GP: Malaysia, 1996 (125cc)
GP starts: 210 (149 x MotoGP/500cc, 30 x 250cc, 30 x 125cc)
Pole positions: 51 (41 x MotoGP/500cc, 5 x 250cc, 5 x 125cc)
World Championships: 8 Grand Prix (1 x 125cc, 1 x 250cc, 1 x 500cc, 5 x MotoGP)

Jorge Lorenzo: Information
Age: 21
Lives: London, UK
Bike: Yamaha
GP victories: 22 (1 x MotoGP, 17 x 250cc, 4 x 125cc)
First GP victory: Brazil, 2003 (125cc)
First GP: Jerez, Spain, 2002 (125cc)
GP starts: 111 (17 x MotoGP, 48 x 250cc, 46 x 125cc)
Pole positions: 30 (4 x MotoGP, 23 x 250cc, 3 x 125cc)
World Championships: 2 x 250cc

Losail: Record Lap
C. Stoner (Ducati) 2008, 1'55.153

Losail: Best Lap
J. Lorenzo (Yamaha) 2008, 1'53.927

[ÜberDoober]

Despite rumors of his early demise, Pedrosa WILL race at Qatar

Pedrosa confirms he will race in Qatar
By Toby Moody Tuesday, April 7th 2009, 11:12 GMT

Dani Pedrosa will ride at this weekend's Qatar MotoGP race after weeks of doubt over his injured left knee and wrist.

The Honda rider re-injured the knee in a crash while testing at the Qatar circuit on March 2nd and hasn't ridden a bike since, thus missing out on the MotoGP Official test at Jerez ten days ago.

His wrist and knee were originally hurt when he crashed out of the lead of the German GP last July.

Repsol Honda says that Pedrosa is determined to take part in the race on Sunday, being "cautiously confident that he will have sufficient flexibility and strength in his left leg to compete in Sunday's 22-lap race."

Full Story (http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74342)Simoncelli is still doubtful. :(

[gonickygo]

Simoncelli is still doubtful. :( That's a bummer for me. I really like SuperSic (hard to believe I have something in common with Speed's RR, ugh.). Poor way to begin his defense, but he didn't score any points in Qatar last year either. Bautista, Barbera, et al will do each other in at some point during the year, so I think he'll be able to catch up even missing one race.

[ÜberDoober]

Just checked motogp.com... looks like FP1 for the 250's is coming up and it says live video is on the air. Unfortunately, I am working and cannot watch it. :realMad:

[ÜberDoober]

Missed getting the 250's but here's the results of FP1

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g223/EKron/QatarFP1.jpg

Hayden near the bottom of the charts for most of the 45 minute session. Melandritis? Sucks that the sessions are shorter this year too.

I managed to catch the last 5 minutes of video and things look great under the lights.

[ÜberDoober]

Home now and except for my kid's kid hanging around all weekend :) I'm free and have a little more time for thoughts.

I wasn't really expecting to get video for FP1 but was pleasantly surprised to see it. Unfortunately, I was onsite for my regular contract job, busy as hell and sucking everyone's bandwidth on their measly 1.5GB DSL so I watched a minute at the beginning with a lot of buffering and the last five minutes. I had live timing up too. The guy that owns the place was between appointments and stopped in the office while it was on. He came over and watched a minute or so of it and said it was cool. After it was over, I decided to go home for the day since I wasn't doing much anyway. :o

As someone that started out early last season preaching that Nicky should get a ride on the Ducati and as a fan, I'm a little confused and disappointed. You see the way Casey rides the bike and he so looks like Hayden did on the 990's. I would have thought Nicky would be right at home on the Ducati, backing it in, gettin' sideways but somehow he can't ride it. Is the second Ducati cursed? Melandri was top 10 on the bastard Kawasaki and Capirex is looking better than ever on the Suzuki.

The interviews and "quote machines" aren't out yet but Hayden can't be happy with himself. Knowing how Nicky is, he'll take all the blame but what the hell is the problem?

Did anybody catch his interview on Wind Tunnel last week? If Hayden struggles on the Ducati all season, it will be a lot closer to home and therefore a much more heart wrenching experience than it was for Melandri's troubling times. Actually Melandri 's pathetic peformances became amusing but I don't want to see Hayden go through that. It's got to be psychologically tough.

I'm excited for the rest of the weekend. The DooberVille gang is sorry that our efforts to pick things up around here have fallen short of our expectations but we will keep working on it. We do appreciate you regulars that show up and keep the fires burning. Don't abandon ship yet, guys. We'll keep trying to come with stuff to get more folks here.

[ÜberDoober]

That's what I get for not being able to listen to the session. Nicky had mechanical issues.


"Today wasn't a great day," Hayden admitted. "To start with I had a problem with a sensor on my first bike and I had to come back after just three laps of my first run and change to my second bike.


"The set-up wasn't the same and the clutch wasn't quite right. The 45 minutes flew by and we weren't able to get back on the pace we set here in the test."


He admitted that he would have to use both Saturday morning practice and qualifying to fine-tune his Ducati, but is is optimistic that he can still be in the thick of the fight for top five places.

(http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74401)
FULL STORY (http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74401)
Let's hope they get it sorted and he has better luck on Saturday

[ÜberDoober]

Good grief! I posted FP2 results everywhere but here? :blink:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g223/EKron/QatarFP2.jpg

Nicky with more bike problems:

Stoner, Capirossi and Scot Racing’s Yuki Takahashi ran off track during the session, but the most spectacular incident involved Ducati Marlboro rider Nicky Hayden. The American had a problem with his Desmosedici GP9 that caused vapor to pour out of the bike and delayed his workload ahead of Saturday qualifying.

from motogp.com (http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2009/Stoner+just+ahead+of+Rossi+in+FP2)

[ÜberDoober]

125cc Qually is on now. My video keeps buffering then pausing about every 5 minutes. It takes a refresh to get it back. Grrr!

I will say the bikes really look good under the lights. :thumbup1:

[ÜberDoober]

MotoGP Qualifying Results:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g223/EKron/QatarQual.jpg

Notes on the session:

- 33 minutes left in the session, Stoner into the 1:56's
- Melandri off into the gravel. Keeps is up
- live timing has 5 riders held over from the 125's?
- Gibernau off and back on
- I really hate these shorter sessions
- Marlboro logos actually on the Ducati's - Cool
- 23 minutes remaining - Stoner breaks 1:55!
- Runing order Stoner, Rossi, Dovizioso, Edwards, Capirossi
- Another bike change for Hayden. He runs wide but gets back on track
- 12 minutes to to - Edwards to 2nd
- No qualifiers this year but people going out on the softer Bridgstone compound
- Randy DePuniet into 2nd
- 7:30 to go and Rossi moves into 2nd and into the 1:55's with Stoner
- Less than 5 min left. Stoner & Rossi back out on fresh rubber
- Stoner finds 2/10ths!
- 2 minutes remaining
- Lorenzo & Dovizioso break into the :55's
- NICKY HAYDEN DOWN
- Time is up
- Stoner has it. Nicky looks hurt. Hugh high side. Dammit.

No word yet on Nicky's injuries. They took him off on a stretcher. :sad: Standby for updates are they are announced.

[ÜberDoober]

250 Qualifying red flagged due to rain! Holy smokes!

That sucks. If it rains for the races tomorrow and they bring out the red flag again, that will really bite. :realMad:

[ÜberDoober]

Crawl across the motogp feed while waiting for the 250's

"69 Hayden declared OK by the medical center"

Somewhat cryptic? I guess that means he has no broken bones sticking out? Hope he can race tomorrow?

Word just out. 250 qualifying will start in 5 minutes. :)

[ÜberDoober]

After the rain delay, the 250's get their qualifying session. This should be a good race but it's too about Simoncelli.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g223/EKron/Qatar250Qual.jpg

[gonickygo]

No word yet on Nicky's injuries. They took him off on a stretcher. :sad: Standby for updates are they are announced.

Unfortunately, I've been expecting for this to happen all pre-season. I think trying to override/push too hard/emulate Stoner finally caught up to him. Pains me.

[ÜberDoober]

According to Autosport, it had started to rain when Nicky crashed. Looks like he is okay to race but man, he's gotta be hurtin'.

Hayden expected to race after crash
By Matt Beer Saturday, April 11th 2009, 21:27 GMT

Nicky HaydenNicky Hayden is expected to be fit to race in tomorrow's Qatar Grand Prix after his violent accident at the end of qualifying.

The Ducati rider landed heavily on his back when he had a high-side as drizzle fell in the final minutes of the session.

Although he remained conscious, he had difficulty getting up and had to receive medical attention in the gravel trap.

Hayden was then taken to the Clinica Mobile, where he was found to have escaped with bruising but no broken bones and declared fit to compete in the season-opener, subject to the results of a scan to be carried out at a local hospital.

He had qualified only 16th prior to the crash, having endured a number of technical problems during the weekend.

Casey Stoner took a dominant pole position on the other factory Ducati.

Source article (http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74415)

[ÜberDoober]

125 race just underway and rain and lightning looks to spoil the party. How disappointing.

What happens if they can't race? Do they reschedule? Oh Noes! Red flag for the 125's :realMad:

I haven't been able to confirm if Hayden will race today or not. It is really pouring in Qatar right now. I am sad. :(

[ÜberDoober]

125 GP called. Only ½ points awarded. What a gyp!

Our fingers are crossed they can get the 250's and MotoGP races in and on time. The night race under the lights is spectacular to watch but if a little rain screws everything up, maybe it isn't worth it?

[ÜberDoober]

Weird, short little 250 race with some surprises.

Results:
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g223/EKron/250FinalQatar.jpg

[ÜberDoober]

THEY JUST SAID IT IS STARTING TO RAIN AGAIN, 20 MINUTES BEFORE RACE TIME. :realMad::realMad::realMad::realMad::realMad:

<edit>
It looks still dry? Nicky is on the bike! Yea!

[ÜberDoober]

Oh shit! (sorry mom) The bikes are firing and it is raining.


START DELAYED!

[ÜberDoober]

I am soooooo disappointed. There isn't even a crying smiley for that.

[ÜberDoober]

Race cancelled. Postponement until Monday under consideration.

[ÜberDoober]

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT JUST CAME OUT!

Race to be run at 9:00pm Qatar time

11:00am Pacific time
2:00pm Eastern time

[ÜberDoober]

Final results - additional notes to follow

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g223/EKron/QatarFINAL.jpg

Looks like Gary took all available points in our contest?

[HeadDoober]

Official contest results have been posted HERE (http://www.dooberville.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3498).

See everyone in two weeks @ Motegi

[Gary]

I couldn't really watch the race, saw it via live timing, but that one looked dull! Stoner had a 1.2 second lead at the end of lap one...

Glad to see Edwards up front, but this season is between Rossi and Stoner, they are in a different league.