The extended race weekend of the first MotoGP round of the season starts tomorrow with an additional day of practice for the teams, and as you might expect for Qatar it's looking warm and dry as the event gets underway. There are some new engine regulations this year, with Factory and Open classes, and as of yesterday Ducati sitting in between the two categories as a kind of Open Factory team -
Crash.net explain in detail how they will lose some of the benefits of being in the Open class once they succeed on track.
It's not just the new classes that are a little more complicated than expected, there is also a potential problem brewing weather wise, and not just the fact that a couple of models are hinting at the possibility of cloud thickening on Friday and Saturday with a slight chance of some light showers during the day, another issue will be a fresh breeze, gusting to around 25-26mph at times. With Losail being a desert circuit, the wind will blow sand onto the track making it less grippy and unpredictable as conditions could change every lap, the winds are currently forecast to peak on Saturday evening, so qualifying could be the worst affected.
On Sunday, the wind doesn't ease too much until evening, so there may still be some issues as the races get underway, especially for the Moto3 and Moto2 classes, it could be a little calmer for the main event at 7pm UK time but with less cloud expected through the day the slim chance of drizzly showers from the previous days is gone.
Good news if you don't have access to
BT Sport on satellite or BT TV, ITV 4 have quietly added a highlights package to their extensive motor sport coverage this year, with Toby Moody providing commentary, so it should retain that passionate and knowledgable feel to it for anyone who followed MotoGP on Eurosport for the past few years - the first program is at 8pm on Monday.
You can see the latest forecast info for
Qatar here.
