MotoGP 2015 - Qatar serves up a treat!

You thought I'd forgotten about two wheels didn't you? Well I haven't! Whilst the main focus of this blog will be Formula 1 and the four wheeled Motorsports I will be covering the MotoGP season and as you lot know it was the season opener in Qatar last weekend...and boy was it an incredible race! (Just a quick note, I will just be covering the main race itself, the main aspects of it rather than a huge review unlike in F1 and I also won't be covering Moto 2 or 3).

Ducati vs Yamaha

When on Saturday Andrea Dovizioso claimed pole position for Ducati, many people, and rightly so, had their doubts as to whether or not Ducati could maintain its pace during the race. in 2014, their bikes could run at the front for around six laps before slipping back due to tyre wear. However, with its brand new GP15 bike barely run in after only debuting at the final test, Ducati showed the world of MotoGP that they were back in buisness, with a four way fight on Sunday between pole man Dovi, his new team mate from Pramac Ducati Andrea Iannone and the Movistar Yamaha boys of Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi.

Dovizioso made a great start and lead into turn 1, but Lorenzo got a stormer and took P2, with Yonny Hernandez taking third, although Iannone taking that place very soon.  Lorenzo soon got into the lead but Ducati's gains meant that he didn't slip back. Dovi and Iannone had plenty of pace to not only hang onto the back of Lorenzo, but fight him, and a great tussle between the Yamaha and two Ducati's ensued. Meanwhile further back, Valentino Rossi, the Doctor himself, was fighting his way through the field from his lowly grid position at the rear of the top ten, and very soon, it was a full on Yamaha vs Ducati fight at the front.

Lorenzo fought hard with Dovi, the incredible straight line speed from the Ducati just gobbling up the Yamaha down the start finish straight,but with 4 laps to go Rossi made his move on his team mate Lorenzo, who was struggling with his vision due to a helmet issue, allowing Iannone to pass him, and Rossi went chasing after the Ducati of Dovizioso. With 3 laps to go the pair of them engaged in one of the greatest MotoGP battles of recent times, Dovizioso showing that the Ducati was not only good on the straights, it was a pretty handy bike in the corners as well!

On the final lap Rossi lead and he knew he had to have a decent enough gap that would allow him to just pip Dovi to the line, and you know what? He did it, and Rossi won the race with Dovi just a tenth behind him and Iannone making it a Ducat 2-3. Lorenzo finished 4th behind the two Ducatis, showing that the Italian team has well and truly returned to the front, but being just short of that first win since Philip Island in 2010, when Casey Stoner was with the team. Rossi said that "this battle was one of the best of my career". You know what Vale, I think there are a lot of people out there that would agree with you. Rossi leads the championship...will he still be leading it come Valencia? Lets wait and see...

What happened to Honda?

You may be sat reading this wondering 'hang on, what happened to Honda?'. Well the pair of Marc Marqueze and Dani Pedrosa came home in 5th and 6th places respectively. Both riders suffered poor starts but Marquez had surely the worst start of anyone, getting a decent run into turn 1 but then running off the circuit and dropping to the back of the pack. All things considered, his recovery to 5th was brilliant but when he got there, he just didn't have the pace. A sign that Honda may have slipped behind Yamaha and dare I say it, Ducati? Lets wait and see what happens next time. On a sad note though, Pedrosa announced after the race that he had been going through all of 2014 with an arm-pump issue and, despite attempting to cure it over the winter period, it had arisen again in the race and it was announced today that he would undergo surgery to cure it, with recovery around 4-6 weeks. This means he will miss at least the USA and Argentina rounds of the championship, and Hiroshi Aoyama will replace Pedrosa for those two races, and anymore Dani cannot do. Get well soon Dani!

Other Stories

Another story of the race of course was Suzuki's return to the sport, with Aleix Espargaro finishing a fairly respectable, but as he put it, "slightly dissapointing" 11th place, his team mate Maverick Vinales finishing 14th. It was a decent return from Suzuki though and they showed promise through practice, so it will be interesting to see what happens when they get up to speed.

As for the Brits, Cal Crutchlow had a fairly anonymous run to 7th on his new LCR Honda, after a crash in qualifying put paid to any chance of repeating his near pace setting performance in practice 4. Cal has yet to get his big breakthrough win in MotoGP but we all know how talented he is and hopefully his time will come. His LCR Honda looks to be a promising bike, so fingers crossed for him he gets some solid results this season. Bradley Smith, in this third season with the Tech3 Yamaha team had a solid race and finished in 8th place, not far behind Cal. Solid performances in the race for the two Brits.

What a race!

So a fantastic way to open the 2015 MotoGP season and a hugely popular win for Rossi but an equally popular result and return to form for Ducati. With Yamaha, Ducati and of course Honda in the mix (surely this race was an anomaly for them?) then this year could be very interesting indeed...best wishes of course though to Dani Pedrosa, and hopefully he will be back on a MotoGP bike soon! Until next time folks. Ciao.