The Moto GP 08' discussion thread

[Shan2nu]

Yup, the d-day is here and looks like it's brought a few changes with it.

To start with, the very first race (Qatar GP) is going to be held at night.

Yamaha seems to be on top again with the first three grid positions going to them and to think that they did this without Rossi's help (whos down in 7th place) shows how serious they are this season.

Lorenzo destroyed everyone in the 250s last season and he looks pretty determined to do the same in MotoGP this time around.

The 125s have already started but it wont be until 2am or so, before the big boyz come out to play.

So sit back n enjoy the race coz it's gonna be one hell of an expereince.

Grid Lineup - The Official MotoGP Website

Shan2nu

[killjoy]

Stoner wins!! Rossi? He finshed 5th though he was runnnig at 2 in some point.

[VC12]

Yes good season kick off in night lit up qatar circuit...

Lead driver :Casey
Team: Fiat Yamaha
Constructor: Ducati

[SohailPistawala]

Originally Posted by VC12

Yes good season kick off in night lit up qatar circuit...

Lead driver :Casey
Team: Fiat Yamaha
Constructor: Ducati

Dude a Little correction there!!

Winner : casey Stoner
Team: Ducati Marlboro Team
Constructor : Ducati.

Good Race... !! Banking on Jorge Lorenzo!! and favourite Rossi!!

[VC12]

Sohail,

You may want to check the details posted on offical motogp site

All my details as rights...

Team is Fiat Yamaha with 31 points and Ducati Marlboro with 30
where as constructor 25 for Ducati and 20 for Yamaha

[balenopower]

Was a gr8 race under lights...sad to see rossi loosing to young guns....dovizioso got him in the last lap to come 4th.Stoner was the usual self...FAST,DOMINATING with a substantial lead from lorenzo...

[maddy42]

Well lorenzo was good though. He was challenging stoner for quite a distance but then the experience of stoner showed up and he garnered lead towards the end. Well what was the reason rossi didnt perform? Is it because of his choice of tires? SToner has a better bike but his teammate also beat him!! Tat was bad

[SohailPistawala]

Ohhhhhhhhh VC12, i am sorry for that dude, i thought you were mentioning details of Casey stoner , I am very sorry i did not mean to test your knowledge at all. Its just that when i saw Casey stoners name and Ducati, i thought u got the name wrong of what their team is called. I take my post back. Hey Mods is there a way to delete the earlier post LOLS...

Thanx for clarification VC12!! no offense !! Peace!!

[F50]

I missed out on the race yesterday but saw it today. Stoner was good. Lorenzo was good too. Sadly, Rossi missed out, hope to see him on the top step and top in championship.

For the night race, something new is always welcome. Im just wondering how the track temperatures affects the (night) race. How different will it behave in the night?

[highwayblaze]

Originally Posted by Shan2nu

Lorenzo destroyed everyone in the 250s last season and he looks pretty determined to do the same in MotoGP this time around.

Amongst MotoGP rookies Jorge Lorenzo's the guy to look out for. In yesterday's race imagine the Yamaha being upto par without the Ducati, it would've been a riot .

Well all that apart I feel really sad that Rossi finished 5th inspite of riding up ahead for the first few laps. The Ducati machine is so good and with a great rider like Stoner saddled in and add to the fact that Yamaha's aren't doing well obviously leaves Rossi' below and Stoner up ahead.

Being a die-hard Rossi fan I wonder if i'm saying this just to convince myself. Does anyone else feel the same?

Yamaha's obviously struggling but IS IT JUST THAT OR are these early 20 something rookies as good?! Or even too good for Rossi to beat?! Or is it good to assume that Yamaha's suck?

Last night as I watched the race, my howling and screaming in rejoice that rossi's riding up front died out in a few laps and my wife who was in the other room hollers out to me and says "looks like rossi's losing...?"
I'm like "why'd you think that?". she goes " well i can't hear you cheering and screaming any more"

[highwayblaze]

Here's some race details I got off factory yamaha's site!

Race 1 - 22 Laps
Rider Standings 09/03/2008

Pos., Rider, Manu., Nat., Points

1, Casey Stoner, Ducati, AUS, 25
2, Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha, ESP, 20
3, Daniel Pedrosa, Honda, ESP, 16
4, Andrea Dovizioso, Honda, ITA, 13
5, Valentino Rossi, Yamaha, ITA, 11
6, James Toseland, Yamaha, GBR, 10
7, Colin Edwards, Yamaha, USA, 9
8, Loris Capirossi, Suzuki, ITA, 8
9, Randy De Puniet, Honda, FRA, 7
10, Nicky Hayden, Honda, USA, 6
11, Marco Melandri, Ducati, ITA, 5
12, John Hopkins, Kawasaki, USA, 4
13, Shinya Nakano, Honda, JPN, 3
14, Toni Elias, Ducati, ESP, 2
15, Sylvain Guintoli, Ducati, FRA, 1
Pos., Rider, Manu., Nat., Total Time

1, Casey Stoner, Ducati, AUS, 42'36.587
2, Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha, ESP, 0'5.323
3, Daniel Pedrosa, Honda, ESP, 0'10.600
4, Andrea Dovizioso, Honda, ITA, 0'13.288
5, Valentino Rossi, Yamaha, ITA, 0'13.305
6, James Toseland, Yamaha, GBR, 0'14.040
7, Colin Edwards, Yamaha, USA, 0'15.150
8, Loris Capirossi, Suzuki, ITA, 0'32.505
9, Randy De Puniet, Honda, FRA, 0'33.003
10, Nicky Hayden, Honda, USA, 0'38.354
11, Marco Melandri, Ducati, ITA, 0'44.284
12, John Hopkins, Kawasaki, USA, 0'49.857
13, Shinya Nakano, Honda, JPN, 0'49.871
14, Toni Elias, Ducati, ESP, 0'58.532
15, Sylvain Guintoli, Ducati, FRA, 0'58.930
16, Anthony West, Kawasaki, AUS, 1'5.643
17, Chris Vermeulen, Suzuki, AUS, -1 Laps

Valentino Rossi - Position: 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."

[highwayblaze]

Originally Posted by highwayblaze

1, Casey Stoner, Ducati, AUS, 25
5, Valentino Rossi, Yamaha, ITA, 11

Stoner's riding a solid bike and now has a 14 point lead, what are the chances the Rossi+yamaha combination will win the championship. I know this is just the beginning, but it'd still be good to hear you guys' opinions.

[jaganm]

You know what, last year I thought that Stoner was just lucky to have the perfect engine, tyres and anyone else in the bike could have done the same. Except Loris Capirossi of course, but he is well past his prime and not a great standard to measure. But what explains this year, he is a mile in front of Marco Melandri. Maybe he really is good.

[Killer]

My thoughts on Rossi. I wouldn't jump to conclusions without looking at everything first

Rossi has been fast in testing everwhere else in off season testing. Yes, it was a first for everyone else too riding the nighshift, but everyone else has some previous data for their setup from the last year, Rossi doesn't. If you had been watching over the past 2 weeks (live streaming video helps ) you would have seen that Rossi was way off the pace for losail even during testing, they made considerable improvement in 1 weekends testing but it wasnt enough. They just couldn't find a setup for the low temps after 11pm, practice session before 11pm when the track was warm had rossi in the top 3, then he would drop to 9th after 11pm. Considering the way he struggled in practice, i think the 5th place was good, his bike was sliding around a lot in the race. After the race i believe Randy Mamola confirmed Rossi's tires were shot!, Rossi was also the 2nd Bridgestone runner after Stoner.

Michelin have improved yes, but i would wait before deciding just how much, they also had the most testing time for the losail conditions this year. Michelins were always good for cooler conditions, even last year, and this last race i feel only made conditions more perfect for them. Normal day time track temps are in excess of 25degrees to say the least, here they were running at 15 degrees, thats a huge difference. I would wait till the next race to see what Rossi's true pace is before dimissing him. If he cant perform at Jerez, i'll concede, he made a bad choice and this year will likely follow the same course as last.

[highwayblaze]

Originally Posted by Killer

After the race i believe Randy Mamola confirmed Rossi's tires were shot!, Rossi was also the 2nd Bridgestone runner after Stoner.
I would wait till the next race to see what Rossi's true pace is before dimissing him. If he cant perform at Jerez, i'll concede, he made a bad choice and this year will likely follow the same course as last.

I thought the same too "ait for the next race and see what happens". But do you also notice how on the start/finish straights the DUCATI has massive power and all that (if any) cornering gain or even keeping it close to ducati efforts by other riders doesnt help coz the gap simply opens up between stoner and who-evers trying to catch up on the straight aways. Its simply horsepower. Its gonna be difficult to close the points gap for rossi and pedrosa and whoever.

Which reminds me about an interesting point about World SBK. Its obviously different from Moto GP the bikes technology and what not but I couldn't help mentioning.
Ducati apparently has such a power advantage over other bikes in World SBK that they've been given a 3kg "penalty" if you will ...the next few races will decide if it will be bumped up by 3 more kg. So they'll be sitting with 6 kg excess weight on their 1098's if they're way dominant over the rest.
Although completely different bikes altogether does this say anything about moto gp as well?