Casey Stoner continues to be the man to beat in Qatar this weekend, but the rest of the MotoGP field is getting wise, and starting to encrouch on the Australian’s lap times in Free Practice 2.
The Fiat Yamaha Team has signed a three-year agreement with Petronas, the Malaysian national oil and gas corporation, who will become a new official sponsor to the MotoGP team. Under the new partnership, the Fiat Yamaha Team will carry the Petronas logo on both Rossi’s and Lorenzo’s bike’s as well as the team equipment and material.
The return of MotoGP racing is just a few days away in Qatar right now, and Casey Stoner has proven himself the man to beat. Stoner was fast from the moment he rolled out onto the track, setting the 1’57 mark within 10 minutes of the free practice, a time he would reduce by a further 0.8 seconds towards the end of the session. Only two other men were able to break in’ the :57’s, Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards. It took Rossi quite some time to catch the Australian, but he was eventually able to close the gap to Stoner by 0.4 seconds. Colin Edwards, the third fastest man in the opening session of the 2009 season finished 0.7 seconds off of Stoner. Outside of that group, Jorge Lorenzo made it 3 Yamaha’s in the top 4, but was still 1.2 seconds behind the time to beat.
Dani Pedrosa has confirmed that he will be racing at Qatar for the opener of the MotoGP season. Pedrosa has been sidelined since a crash while testing, which led to him needing surgery on his leg and arm. Speaking on his blog at repsol.com, the Spaniard announced that he had decided at the last minute to head to Losail, and to risk further injury by riding.
More action from Qatar on Saturday (Sunday for us in the US), as World Superbike completes Race 2 at Losail. The second race at Qatar for the year shows that we are in for quite the season, with riders old and new making waves. Continue reading for the races spoilers and results.
It was a three machines with three different types of motors battling it out for the top three spots in World Superbike’s first round of racing this year at Qatar. Continue reading to see the spoilers and race results.
Our very own Ben Spies has done it again and won the Superpole for the second time this year at the second round of World Superbike in Qatar, braking the lap record at the Losail circuit. Spies took his Yamaha YZF-R1 to a best time of 1.57.280 ahead of Guandalini Ducati rider Jakub Smrz,the Czech earning his first front-row start of the season. Aprilia’s Max Biaggi also put the RSV4 on the front row for a second successive race.
The injury Dani Pedrosa suffered at Qatar is worse than at first thought. We reported earlier that Pedrosa had come away from the accident with only bruising and swelling, but after a closer examination it is now apparent that Dani has suffered a distal radius fracture, an injury which will require the fitting of a titanium screw to compress the fracture. He is scheduled to undergo surgery on Wednesday afternoon.
As the MotoGP Official Night Test came to a conclusion at midnight in Qatar on Tuesday, it was Casey Stoner who sat proudly at the head of the time sheet. This was the last day for the MotoGP field to get practice in the desert night before the season starts, and is the second of three tests planned for the 2009 season. The next outing for the MotoGP riders is the Official MotoGP Test at the Jerez circuit in southern Spain which takes place on 28th & 29th March. MotoGP will then return to Qatar for the first Grand Prix of the year on 10th-12th April.
After the torrential rain on Sunday evening, riders were not taking any chances with cool temperatures and a dirty track surface from high winds earlier last night. Without little surprise, lap times were well off record pace, and most riders were not taking any extra chances after seeing Chris Vermeulen, Dani Pedrosa and Mikka Kallio all crash out, and the track red flagged twice. Despite the carnage, Casey Stoner found himself on the top of the stack as the fastest rider of the day in the second round of testing at Qatar.
Testing was cut short for the first day at Qatar as a rare rainstorm put a hold to the first session under the lights of the MotoGP Official Night Test. At 6pm there were ambient temperatures of 68ºF and track temperatures of 75ºF, but an hour later heavy rain drove the riders off track and back into the shelter of their pit-boxes. Almost half the MotoGP field had not left their garages before the rain arrived, including Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, and Dani Pedrosa.