The new season of MotoGP brings with it a raft of changes. First, and most importantly, the bikes are now 800cc, and not 990cc monsters. This rule was brought in to slow the bikes down. Unfortunately for the organizers, this has not been the case. During the test season, the 800cc bikes showed that they are every bit as quick as the 990's, faster even, as all of the lap records were smashed using the 800cc bikes. The fuel load allowed in the bikes was reduced to 21ltrs, a five percent reduction from last year.

Other changes are to teams and sponsors. Valentino Rossi has signed up to Yamaha for another two years, and it seems has brought the Fiat group with him as sponsorship. He's joined by last years team mate, Colin Edwards to add stability to the team. Honda's kept the current world champion, Niki Hayden and his team mate from last year, Danni Pedrosa. Ducati however have brought in young Australian, Casey Stoner to partner Loris Capirossi.

I mention the Ducati change as it was Casey who won the first outing at Qatar.
The qualifying session showed that around the lap, the Yamaha with Rossi at the helm was the fastest bike, in fact half a second quicker than last years 990cc bikes. He was however closely followed by Casey for second, with the other Yamaha on third with Edwards.

Off the line, the Yamaha of Rossi showed it was quick as well, however Rossi was closely challenged by Stoner into the first corner. Unfortunately for Edwards, it looked like the bike bogged down on the launch. Edwards ended up in sixth into the first set of corners, and could not seem to make up the lost ground all race.

Stoner sat on the back of Rossi for the entire first lap. As the two riders came onto the start straight (1mile in length at Qatar) Stoner blew past Rossi. It seemed that the Yamaha was quickest around the tight parts of the circuit, but the Ducati certainly had the legs by a large margin on the straight.

Rossi sat and watched the back of Stoner for a few laps, and the pair pulled away from Danni Pedrosa. Rossi started to show his nerve by putting moves on Stoner, overtaking him at almost every lap till the end of the race. Unfortunately for Rossi, the Yamaha just could not live with the Ducati on the straights. Any time that Rossi put into Stoner, he just got overtaken on the straight, and most importantly, always before the finish line. Rossi, with two laps to go, realized this, and settled for second place.

A deserved win for Casey and Ducati on the first outing of 2007. Qatar is a very strange circuit, and I would think that Ducati may have to curb the revs at some other circuits where full throttle is used more often. It's also the first time that the teams have run directly against each other. I would imagine that Yamaha will work on the straight line speed.