Inside MotoGP

If you tried to watch the MotoGP race today, you know that it was cancelled due to some heavy rain that came pouring down just before the start of the race. Although rain does not usually cancel MotoGP races, trying to ride around the track under the floodlights in the rain is very treacherous – the visibility is terrible. It had been understood beforehand that the race would not happen in the rain.

After much discussion between race officials and the teams it was decided that the race would be postponed until Monday night at 9:00PM Qatar time. There will also be an additional warm up session at 6:30pm.

There were many pros and cons to be considered. Some were concerned that the track might not in very good shape after all the rain and dirt that has been deposited on it by the storms. There are also huge costs involved with delaying things by a day at the last minute. Flights and hotel rooms need to be re-booked and shipments of equipment need to be changed. All this is occurring while race organizers are desperately trying to find ways to cut costs. Obviously fans and the TV networks that carry MotoGP want the race to go on. Caparossi and Edwards proposed at one point to change the date of the race to September to fill in the place of the cancelled Hungarian Race. In the end the organizers decided that a Monday race would be best.

I would think that the injured riders, Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden, would be slightly better off by this extra day of recuperation before the race. Nicky, who has had a couple of equipment problems during free practices and then high-sided during the qualifying might be able to benefit a little from some extra track time tomorrow too.

Rossi, who has never been a fan of the idea of running the race at night in the first place, was hoping that this situation would put an end to night races.

Here in the US, Speed TV carries the MotoGP races. Since the race was cancelled they showed last years race instead. They have no word yet on when tomorrows race will be shown, however they did have a repeat of the race scheduled for Tuesday at 2:00pm Eastern Time, so they might just show it then. I’ll be sure to put up a new post if I do find out when they are showing the race.

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