After the news regarding the cancelation of the MotoGP races in Qatar, it was perhaps only a matter of time before Dorna realized that it has another series headed to the Gulf state, which would have to deal with the new Qatari travel restrictions.
Accordingly, it is not surprising that the FIM and Dorna have announced that the Qatar WorldSBK round, which was slated to take place in two weeks’ time (March 13th thru 15th), has been postponed until further notice.
The COVID-19 outbreak, or coronovirus as it is more commonly known, has finally had an impact on MotoGP.
Today, the FIM and Dorna announced that the MotoGP race at Qatar has been canceled, while the Moto2 and Moto3 races are due to go ahead.
The cancellation is due to restrictions imposed by Qatar on travelers coming from Italy and Japan. With so many members of the paddock – riders, engineers, mechanics, journalists, and other team staff – from those two countries, it would have been almost impossible for MotoGP to race there.
The second day of the final preseason test of 2020 showed pretty much the same pattern as the first day: Maverick Viñales didn’t finish the day on top of the timesheets, but the Monster Energy Yamaha rider clearly has the best pace, capable of running consistent low 1’54s, a tenth or two faster than anyone else.
Fabio Quartararo posted the fastest single lap on Sunday, and he and Alex Rins were the only riders getting anywhere near to Viñales’ pace.
As a benchmark, Quartararo posted 14 laps in the 1’54s, Viñales 13 laps, Rins 11 laps. Joan Mir was the only other consistent contender, with 6 laps in the 1’54s, and a solid race pace in the low 1’50s, high 1’54s. The Yamahas and Suzukis are looking very strong indeed at Qatar.
That was borne out by Maverick Viñales’ media debrief. Once, those were glum affairs, in which Viñales would sullenly respond with nearly monosyllabic answers. His mood has improved since last year, especially since his results became more competitive in the second half of the season.
This year, he is positively upbeat: he used the word ‘happy’ ten times in three-and-a-half minutes speaking to reporters. Two years ago, the only time Viñales used the word ‘happy’ was when he preceded it with the words ‘we can’t be’.
Danilo Petrucci certainly believes that Viñales is the man to beat. “Maverick has been really, really fast, also in Sepang,” the Ducati Factory rider told reporters.
“I think at the moment, he is the rider in the best shape, absolutely, both in the single lap and race pace. He can ride in high 1’54, and I think nobody is able to do that.”
If there is one thing that we learned from the Sepang test, it is that the field is even closer this year. In Malaysia, 18 riders finished within a second of one another. That pattern has continued at Qatar, Pol Espargaro in fourteenth just 0.987 second behind the fastest man, Alex Rins.
As comparison, the KTM rider was the last rider within a second of the fastest man after the first day of this test in 2019, but then, there were just eight riders ahead of him, rather than thirteen. And there was a gap of nearly four tenths of a second between the riders in second and third last year. Not so in 2020.
But if the single lap times were close, the race pace was a lot less so. Maverick Viñales towered over the rest in terms of consistent pace, with only the Suzukis of Alex Rins and Joan Mir getting anywhere near the pace of the Monster Energy Yamaha rider.
Viñales laid down a real benchmark, with ten of his 47 laps in the 1’54s, which is under the race lap record. That included a run of ten laps, seven of which were 1’54s, five of which were consecutive. That is a rather terrifying race pace for the Spaniard to lay down, just two weeks ahead of the first race.
Viñales has a reputation for being the winter testing champion, frequently topping the timesheets, yet never quite able to convert that into a consistent championship challenge once the season gets underway.
But there is reason to think things are a little different this time: not only is the Yamaha M1 a good bit faster than it was last year, but Viñales himself has a different attitude.
From the humid heat of Malaysia to the cool desert night air, MotoGP enters the final test before the season kicks off in two weeks. The Qatar MotoGP test is something of an oddity, and hard to quantify.
It comes too late to make any major changes to the bike, yet plays a crucial role in exposing vital weaknesses in the factories’ MotoGP machines. It is a place where you won’t see any major updates being rolled out, but it is also the test where factories are looking to catch each other out.
With just two weeks to go to the start of the season, it is too late for anyone to understand and copy any brilliant new ideas before the start of the season.
The main purpose of the Qatar test is to verify engine configurations. All six factories rolled out new engines, updated over the winter break, at Sepang, but the Malaysian circuit is deceptive.
Hot tropical air, a big, wide track with very few tight, low-gear corners means that it is hard to tell whether additional power has pushed the engine over the fine line between aggressive and uncontrollable.
Episode 131 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one gives us a preview of what to expect at the upcoming MotoGP preseason test at Qatar.
Giving us lowdown in this show are Steve English and David Emmett, with the pair talking about a little WorldSBK action as well.
Episode 121 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one is a WorldSBK show, as the production championship comes to us from Qatar..
As such, this means that we see Steve English joined by Gordon Ritchie on the mics, as they are our World Superbike reporting duo for the 2019 season.
Recording straight from trackside at the Losail Circuit, the guys give finish up the 2020 season for World Superbikes, and talk about the racing under the lights and in the desert.
Episode 94 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it we see Neil Morrison, and David Emmett on the mics, as we cover the very eventful Qatar GP. MotoGP racing has finally started in earnest, and the two-wheeled action under the lights of Losail did not disappoint GP fans.
The action off the track was there as well, with teams protesting Ducati’s use of aerodynamic aids on its swingarm. The guys give this topic a lengthy discussion, looking at the protest from all the angles, as it will have huge implications for the MotoGP Championship.
For a place which 95% of the paddock hates going to, Qatar certainly knows how to make us want to come back. The area between Doha and the Losail International Circuit has been a mixture of noisy construction, omnipresent sand and dust, and an ever-changing and convoluted road system (the route to the track regularly and literally changing overnight) ever since I first went to a race there in 2009. But once at the circuit, the track layout serves up some of the best racing in the world.
Fittingly, the title sponsor for the Qatar round of MotoGP was VisitQatar, the Qatari tourist office aimed at stimulating inbound tourism to the Gulf peninsula. To be honest, the best thing VisitQatar could do to attract visitors to the country is just play all three of Sunday’s races on a loop. In the Moto3 race, the first eleven riders all finished within a second.
The first five riders in MotoGP finished within six tenths of a second. And the winning margin in all three races was five hundredths of a second or less. These were races decided by the width of a wheel, the winner in doubt all the way to the line.
The MotoGP race was a thrilling affair, a close race from start to finish, with wild passes as far as the eye can see. Riders jockeyed for position, vying to make their contesting strategies pay off.
Yet it still left some fans feeling empty, with the impression that they were being cheated of an even better race if the riders has been willing and able to go flat out as soon as the lights went out all the way to the end.
Andrea Dovizioso’s victory in the opening race of the 2019 MotoGP season at Qatar is currently subject to appeal. Dovizioso raced in Qatar using the aerodynamic components previously debuted by factory Ducati teammate Danilo Petrucci at the Qatar test, and used by Petrucci and Pramac Ducati’s Jack Miller during practice at the Qatar MotoGP round.
You don’t expect to be cold in the desert. On Friday evening, most of the paddock was wandering around in short sleeves and t-shirts until after 9pm. On Saturday, people were pulling on jackets shortly after sunset. By the time MotoGP finished, people were starting to lose feeling in their hands.
It wasn’t just the temperature. The wind had picked up enormously on Saturday, blowing sand onto the track in places, and blowing any residual heat from ever nook and cranny around the circuit. It was not the normal chill of the desert evening. It was cold.
That caused more than a few problems during the evening. Session after session, class after class, riders fell, mostly at Turn 2. That is the first left-hand corner for nearly 2km, after the final right-hander before the long straight, and then hard braking for Turn 1.
That is a lot of time for the front tire to cool down, especially when there is a hard headwind blowing down the main straight, whipping the heat from the tires.