Latest MotoGP News

The fates have been incredibly cruel to the MotoGP series since the 2008 season ended. First, a manufacturer withdraws, then a flurry of rule changes hastily enacted in a bid to cut costs in response to the financial crisis received widespread criticism, and finally, the first race of the season has to be postponed due to rain - in the desert, of all places. Of course, much of the blame for this misfortune can be firmly laid at the door of governing body of the series, the Grand Prix Commission: The switch to 800cc made the bikes radically more expensive; The rule changes were discussed and agreed within a matter of a few weeks, leaving the suspicion of not being fully thought through; And though it may not rain in the desert, Qatar has a wet (well, damp) season too, and running the race at night means that even a small amount of rain can cause the race to be postponed.

But the events at Motegi on Saturday are arguably beyond the power of Dorna to control. Rain had been forecast for Saturday, but that so much water would fall that rivers would start flowing across the track is an unusual event indeed. In the end, Race Direction waited for an hour to see if the weather would improve, and when it didn't, it canceled qualifying. A wise move, all things considered, as the occupants of the safety car sent out to examine the track declared the circuit too dangerous to even drive around, let alone try to ride a motorcycle at race pace on.

One of the accusations leveled against the much-criticized night race at Qatar - run a day late because of the rain - was that it need never have been postponed if it had been run during the day, as the rain would not have been a problem in daylight. But as if under instruction by Dorna, the weather gods have decided to prove those critics wrong, to show that just because there's daylight, it doesn't mean there will be any racing.

For the rain is falling so heavily in Motegi - in the middle of the afternoon - that all the qualifying  sessions planned for this afternoon were first delayed due to water on the track. After inspection by the Safety Commission, who went out for a lap of the circuit in a safety car, the Commission pronounced that there was so much water around the track that the conditions were too dangerous even in a car. Sandbags have been located around the circuit to try and hold back the water flowing across the track, but to no avail.

Initially, the decision was taken to wait for an extra hour, to assess whether conditions would improve enough for qualifying to be run later. But as the rain was falling just as hard at the end of that hour as at the start, there was nothing left for Race Direction to do but to cancel the qualifying sessions for all three classes.

With qualifying canceled, grid positions will now be determined based on the combined free practice times set so far. In practice, this means the results of FP1, as times in the wet FP2 sessions were 13 and more seconds slower than FP1 for the MotoGP class, and similar margins for the 125 and 250 classes. Where this leaves the riders who failed to make the qualifying time in the 125 and 250 classes also remains to be seen, though in the past, Race Direction has tended to err in the direction of leniency.

Just a few hours after news emerged that Donington Ventures Leisure Limited, the company that operates Britain's Donington Park circuit, was being sued for back rent and the forfeiture of its lease to the track, DVLL has acted to quash rumors that it stood to lose all racing at the circuit. The issue is complex, but if the Wheatcroft family, who own the track, have the lease returned for the non-payment of the GBP 2.47 million they claim they are owed, then DVLL would no longer be allowed to operate the track, and unless a company could be found to take DVLL's place, the World Superbike, MotoGP and British Superbike rounds would be in jeopardy of being canceled.

This evening, Donington Park issued a statement on the website denying that any racing would be canceled, and saying that they expected to be running "business as usual". Significantly, the statement quotes "Donington Park staff" as saying that they would be operating the track normally, and the racing would be going ahead. Normally in cases like this, such a statement would come from the CEO or Managing Director of a company, and so two possibilities exist: The most likely is that CEO Simon Gillett may have felt that a statement from himself may have created legal complications should he have to appear in court to defend the claims against the company; But an alternative - and completely unfounded, it must be said - explanation is that the staff themselves are determined to organize the racing however they can, and no matter what the management does.

It is still too early to say which side of the argument will prevail. But with Bernie Ecclestone making significant noises about withdrawing the Formula One contract from Donington, then all bets would be off, and DVLL's chances of securing an investor to stump up the estimated GPB 100 million it would require to fund the project would seem to be very remote indeed.

To many MotoGP fans, the news that Donington was to lose the British Grand Prix was bad news, as many prefer Donington's flowing layout - at least, the first half of the track, before the notorious car park section - to Silverstone's relatively flat circuit. It was seen as a loss, with another classic track disappearing from the calendar.

But it may not be such a loss after all. Ever since Donington embarked upon the project to redesign the track to make it suitable for Formula One, a stream of bad news has emerged from the circuit. First of all, the track had to reschedule and postpone a number of events after complaints about the construction. The new paddock access tunnel being built between Macleans and Coppice had meant run off in that area had been severely compromised, and the situation was only rectified after Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd promised to address the problems.

Now, Donington has an even bigger problem: The owner of the track, Tom Wheatcroft, has started legal proceedings against Donington Ventures Leisure Limited for unpaid rent. Wheatcroft claims that they are owed GBP 2.47 million by DVLL, which has a 150 year lease for the track, and are demanding payment of the arrears, which dates back to September 2008. Even worse news for DVLL is that Wheatcroft is also demanding that the lease be forfeited, effectively regaining control of the circuit.

Ever since the announcement that Donington would be hosting the British Formula One Grand Prix from 2010, there have been doubts about the feasibility of the project. DVLL needed to raise GPB 100 million to fund the massive construction planned for the new track, something many people believed would prevent a challenge at the best of times, let alone in the middle of a recession.

The transition from 250cc two strokes to 600cc four-stroke Moto2 bikes  has been nowhere near as smooth as the move from 500cc two-stroke GP bikes to the 990cc MotoGP machines. The main culprit for the difficulty is a question of semantics, and arguments about how to define production racing. To avoid a confrontation between Infront Motor Sports, who run the World Superbike series, and Dorna, who run MotoGP, a decision has been made to make the series a single engine manufacturer series, getting round the problem of production engines altogether. Hopefully.

But while Dorna and the Grand Prix Commission examine the practicalities of the series, in the Spanish Championship (the CEV, coincidentally - or perhaps not - also run by Dorna), the Moto2 bikes have already taken to the track in anger. The LaGlisse YM2, based on a Yamaha R6, and the Blusens BQR bike, using a Honda CBR600RR powerplant, both took part in qualifying for the Formula Extreme race - a class most akin to Superstock 1000 - at the CEV season opener at Albacete, and acquitted themselves highly respectably. The LaGlisse YM2 qualified in 5th, just over 1.3 seconds off Ivan Silva's pole time, set using a Kawasaki ZX10R, while the Blusens bike set the 6th fastest time just a tenth slower than the LaGlisse bike.

The photos from Qatar taken by Scott Jones have been extremely popular, just as we expected. And luckily for us, Scott still has plenty more where they came from. Below are some of Scott's photos taken during practice and qualifying, and over the next couple of days, we'll put up some more from race day. Enjoy, and stay tuned!

Nicky Hayden had an awful weekend, including a blown engine during practice