GP Qatar

Confidence high for Stoner and Hayden

Friday, 30 April 2010

The Ducati Marlboro riders were both extremely pleased with how FP1 at the Gran Premio bwin de España went on Friday, as they set the first and third fastest times respectively of the session.

Casey Stoner and Nicky Hayden were satisfied men after the opening practice session at Jerez, as they praised the performances of their respective Desmosedici GP10 prototypes.
For Stoner the GP presents a first opportunity to get some Championship points after his crash in Qatar, and as he seeks a first win at the circuit the Australian is brimming with positivity after his time of 1’39.731 in FP1 topped the timesheet.
“I’m feeling a lot more confident than I ever have at this circuit. Immediately from the first lap on this bike I knew things were different to past years, and the bike felt so much more confident than it ever has,” he said. “I have a great feeling, the rear is a lot calmer, it’s not pumping all over the track, and things feel very good. Everybody else is going to be ready for a good fight this weekend and I think it’s going to be the first chance I’m going to have to fight for maybe a victory here.”
Not even a slide out with two minutes of the session remaining brought Stoner’s mood down, and he even took the positives from the minor fall.
“I’m not really too sure (what happened),” said Stoner when asked about the fall at Turn 9. “The lap before I went into that corner a little bit too fast, so I thought on the next lap I’d ease it off a little bit, and a similar thing happened to what did in Qatar. We just didn’t have enough weight on the front, so I think we might be getting a little bit of a wrong indication from the bike of what we need to do with it. I think this is actually a good thing to happen to us because now we’ve had the same thing happen twice and this is going to give us a lot better indication of how to improve the problem for tomorrow, and the rest of the season. So far we’re very happy with the situation we’re in.”
Hayden is looking to build on what was a superb display in Qatar where he took fourth place in the race, and the third quickest lap in the opening practice at Jerez left the American in similarly high spirits at just 0.417s off his team-mate.
“The session went well and I’m really happy right now because this is a big one for us,” he commented. “I was fast in Malaysia and Qatar but that was after a lot of testing at those tracks, experimenting with many different settings, but we’ve come here and been fast out of the gate, which was one of my goals for this season – to be on the pace on Fridays. We didn’t set the world on fire or break any track records so we’re not getting carried away but the bike is close and if we can get it a little better in the fast corners we should have a good package.”
Hayden added: “The team made one little change today that helped a lot and on my last exit I was able to stay in the 1’40s from the first lap to the last. It’s a good start and if we keep working in this way we can have a good weekend.”

Dikutip dari: http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2010/Stoner+and+Hayden+pleased+after+practice

Spectacular Qatar night race to kick off MotoGP season

Monday, 05 April 2010

The floodlit desert circuit will host the opening round of the 2010 MotoGP World Championship on Sunday, April 11th.

The 154-day long wait for the start of the new MotoGP season will come to an end on Sunday, when the 17 riders who will battle it out for the 2010 World Championship line up on the grid at the Losail International Circuit for the CommercialBank Grand Prix of Qatar.
Little over three weeks have passed since the riders finished their pre-season preparations at the track, and it was Casey Stoner who signed off the third and final pre-season Test at the circuit as the fastest rider of the field. In doing so the Ducati Marlboro man broke reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi’s pre-season dominance, and will be aiming for a magnificent fourth straight season-opening race win at the track.
Fiat Yamaha rider Rossi starts the campaign with the aim of securing a tenth World title – an eighth in the premier class – and his form in the Tests indicates that he remains the man to beat. He is still seeking as first win under the floodlights (he has won daytime races at Losail in 2005 and 2006) and finished second last year, and the factory YZR-M1 has received a glowing assessment from the Italian in the lead-up to the first race, as it has done from team-mate Jorge Lorenzo.
The Spaniard, who finished last year’s Championship as runner-up to his team-mate and rival, will arrive at the first round still carrying the after effects of an injury that saw him at less than 100% at the Test three weeks ago. Nevertheless he still managed to maintain a competitive check on the timesheet, and Lorenzo’s physical condition will no doubt be further improved.
Dani Pedrosa, last year’s third-placed Championship rider, has struggled in pre-season with his factory RC212V of the Repsol Honda team, but will be in much better physical shape for the opening race than last year, when he finished 11th after an injury affected pre-season. His team-mate Andrea Dovizioso was in good form at the Qatar Test with the third best time, and other factory riders Nicky Hayden (Ducati Marlboro) and Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki) will also be in the hunt for strong starts to their respective campaigns.
Monster Yamaha Tech3 duo Colin Edwards – who finished fourth in Qatar in 2009 – and Ben Spies have both enjoyed good pre-seasons, with the latter the best performing rookie and causing great excitement at his debut season in MotoGP.
A host of other newcomers are making their premier class bows, as 250cc World Champion Hiroshi Aoyama (Interwetten Honda MotoGP), Álvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki), Héctor Barberá (Paginas Amarillas Aspar), and Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini) make up an exciting group of rookies on the grid. Randy de Puniet of the LCR Honda team, Marco Melandri (San Carlo Honda Gresini), and Pramac Racing pair Mika Kallio and Aleix Espargaró complete the 17-strong list.
The first hour-long practice of the CommercialBank Grand Prix of Qatar begins at 10.30pm local time on Friday evening, with the race due to commence at 11pm local time on Sunday.
If you are unable to be at the race in person to see the action, you can view the action with the fantastic Hi-Res Season VideoPass, with amazing new Hi-Res+ quality available for the MotoGP races in 2010. For further details and to subscribe click here!

Dikutip dari: www.motogp.com