The opening race of the MotoGP season and the championship’s first night race saw Fiat Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi finish a disappointed fifth tonight, after struggling for pace on the cold track throughout the 22 lap race. His young team-mate Jorge Lorenzo meanwhile took second on his MotoGP debut.
Rossi, racing on Bridgestone tyres for the first time, made up two places on the opening lap and for the first few laps looked like he might be a contender for the top spots as he picked his way through the field. On lap five he took the lead and held onto it for three laps, but he was unable to ride his M1 as he wanted to and surrendered first place to Casey Stoner just three laps later. It was downhill for the Italian from then on as his pace dropped off and he began to slip back, unable to keep up with the leaders. Dani Pedrosa passed him for third a nd Rossi eventually became embroiled in a close battle for fourth with Andrea Dovizioso, with the rookie eventually running out the winner by just a fraction of a second.
It was a good night for Yamaha in general however as Lorenzo’s podium, Rossi’s fifth position and sixth and seventh places from Tech 3 riders James Toseland and Colin Edwards made it four Yamahas in the top ten. The next stop for the paddock will be Jerez, Spain on 30th March for the second race of 18.
Valentino RossiPosition: 5th
Time: +13.305
“We expected a difficult race here, but actually not as difficult as this! We haven’t been fast here in Qatar since last week’s night test but, despite this, I thought we might be able to fight for the podium. Tonight however it was really difficult and now we have to understand the reason for this result. After five or six laps I started doing 56.4 and 56.5 and from then on I couldn’t improve on that pace until the end. I was very fast in braking, but not so fast in the corners. We know that we can make our Bridgestone tyres work better than this, because they are winning tyres and tonight they showed it once again. Throughout the winter, at all tracks, we were very fast and this is the only one where we were not. Now our task is to understand why this happened. We had a couple of ideas to try but in the end we decided to stick to what we know because we need some more time to understand how to improve and how to be faster. We know we can do better than this and so we just need to gather all the information and use it in the best way for the next race. Finally I want to say congratulations to Lorenzo for a great debut tonight; honestly I’m not surprised because I knew he was fast and talented, but he did very well tonight in a hard race so well done to him.”
Davide Brivio - Team Manager “It was a very interesting day, because it was our first race with Bridgestone and we knew we were in a difficult situation. We were able to collect a lot of information and now our engineers and technicians have the chance to evaluate this and we will have some new material from the Friday in Jerez. Bridgestone won the race and Yamaha went very well and improved a lot in respect to last year. The other three M1s were very fast and so with Valentino now we need to gather these two ingredients and then together we know we have big potential. Our aim now is to exploit the package in the best way, starting from the next race.”
Masahiko Nakajima - Team Director “This was our first experience of a night race and it’s been clear that the low track temperatures make controlling the tyre situation quite difficult. Added to that the low air temperatures mean that fuel consumption is also a worry. We spent a lot of time working with Bridgestone to try to find a good package but unfortunately we couldn’t do enough tonight. Now we need to investigate exactly what’s happened and act on it before the next race.”
Ambient temperature: 18 degrees
Track temperature: 19 degrees
Humidity: 58%
Results:1. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro 42'36.587
2. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team + 5.323
3. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda + 10.600
4. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) JiR Team Scot MotoGP + 13.288
5. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team + 13.305
6. James Toseland (GBR) Tech 3 Yamaha + 14.040
7. Colin Edwards (USA) Tech 3 Yamaha + 15.150
8. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP + 32.505
9. Randy De Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP + 33.003
10. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda + 38.354
11. Marco Melandri (ITA) Ducati Marlboro + 44.284
12. John Hopkins (USA) Kawasaki Racing + 49.857
13. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini + 49.871
14. Toni Elias (SPA) Alice Team + 58.532
15. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Alice Team + 58.930
16. Anthony West (AUS) Kawasaki Racing + 1'05.643
17. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Rizla Suzuki 1 Lap
Not Classified: Alex De Angelis (RSM) San Carlo Honda Gresini 6 Lap
Championship Standings: 1. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro 25
2. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team 20
3. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda 16
4. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) JiR Team Scot MotoGP 13
5. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 11
6. James Toseland (GBR) Tech 3 Yamaha 10
7. Colin Edwards (USA) Tech 3 Yamaha 9
8. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 8
9. Randy De Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 7
10. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda 6
11. Marco Melandri (ITA) Ducati Marlboro 5
12. John Hopkins (USA) Kawasaki Racing 4
13. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini 3
14. Toni Elias (SPA) Alice Team 2
15. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Alice Team 1
Losail Lap Record: C. Stoner (Ducati) 2007, 1'56.528
Losail Best Lap: V. Rossi (Yamaha) 2007, 1'55.002
