[kropotkin thinks...] - Qatar MotoGP Round To Be Spread Over Four Days

[Ninjette Newsbot]

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The Qatar round of MotoGP has always been a tricky proposition. The track and the facilities are remarkable, with a spacious paddock and outstandingly equipped pit garages, but the location of the track - in the desert, in one of the hottest regions in the world - places a great deal of strain on using those facilities. From April to October, daytime temperatures make racing a motorcycle a punishing affair, temperatures only really returning to comfortable levels during MotoGP's winter break.

Switching to a night race was meant to get around these problems, but the nighttime event posed problems of its own. Temperatures drop rapidly throughout the evening, making the surface suddenly very greasy as the combination of humidity and temperature hits the dew point, something which usually occurs just as the MotoGP race is about to begin. Several mysterious crashes during the final test of 2010 led to calls for the race to be rescheduled, and a search for solutions to the problem of the track turning treacherous. With Qatar holding a contract to field the opening race of the season, changing dates was not a realistic option, and racing under the floodlights was the one thing that marked the Qatar MotoGP race out as unique, meaning that the QMMF, the Qatari motorsports federation who organize the race, are reluctant to hold the race in the daytime.

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