Thursday is the last anyone will have anything approaching a normal night. The sound of two-strokes fills the air at 8:00 p.m. Friday evening, the first and only 125cc practice of the day. Moto2 bikes make their debut at 9:15 p.m. MotoGP practice ends on Friday night at 11:30 p.m., after which the national Superbikes take to the track for their second race of the day. Many bad jokes are made about the 14th-place finisher, a certain A.A. Binladin, which is the traditional Arab spelling.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3's Ben Spies is less than enthusiastic about night racing. Spies swept the first of his World Superbike doubles here last year, but that was during the day on a Yamaha R1 with Pirelli tires. Life is much different on an M1 with Bridgestones, especially when 13 of the 17 riders in the field are world champions, including Spies.
While he was being dubbed "The Next One," Spies worked hard during the off-season to play down his chances, but there was no hiding after he finished sixth fastest in Friday night's first practice. The expectations being heaped on Spies are higher than for any other MotoGP rookie in quite some time.
After dominating practice...
After dominating practice and qualifying on pole, Casey Stoner was well on his way to victory before crashing out with a two-second lead.
Diligently working with Ducati...
Diligently working with Ducati engineers has enabled Nicky Hayden to finally show what he's capable of on the Desmosedici GP10. Hayden qualified fourth and finished in the same position, just getting beat to the podium on the run to the finish line by Honda's Andrea Dovisioso.
After getting off to poor...
After getting off to poor start from his third place grid position, Jorge Lorenzo charged through the field to finish second behind Rossi, despite still recovering from a preseason training crash that injured his right hand.
Casey Stoner was fastest by half a second, then Lorenzo, with Rossi a concerned third, and for good reason: the Yamahas were down on top speed. Edwards had the slowest of the 17 bikes, Spies was fourth from the bottom. Dovizioso was the first Honda, qualifying fourth and followed by the Americans, Hayden and Spies.
By the time the riders debrief and meet the media, it's well after midnight. By the time the journalists and photographers file copy and load websites, it's 2:30 a.m. I roll into the hotel near the main souq (market) at 3:00 a.m., stay up for an hour, then fall asleep. The chanting first call to Muslim prayer over loudspeakers across the city comes at 5:00 a.m.
The paddock tends not to be a curious lot. On Friday, I spend the afternoon in the main souq, the market in the Arab east end of town. The market is fragrant and the stalls offer bargains on nuts, spices, water pipes, and other local wares. Other than the manager of one Moto2 team and his family, there is no one I recognize. The day before, when I went to the Villagio shopping mall (patterned off the Bellagio in Las Vegas), there were plenty of team shirts.
Saturday morning the temperature is scorching, and the air so thick with dust that the skyline is obscured. Dust and sand are a major problem at the 3.343-mile, 16-turn road course. Care was taken to control the sand by placing fake grass trackside, but it's only partially successful. Sand blows across the surface, embedding itself in the tarmac, and causing problems for tires. The tire companies use the term "graining" to describe how it tears up the rubber.
The full 40-rider grid in...
The full 40-rider grid in the new Moto2 spec class meant not only tight qualifying times, but also some exciting racing from start to finish. In the second turn of the first lap, Alex De Angelis (15) is just about to collide with fellow MotoGP refugee Toni Elias (24), causing De Angelis to fall and take out Stefan Bradl (65).
We arrive at the track just after 2:00 p.m., which is stupidly early since we won't leave until around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. The 125s don't roll until 6:00 p.m., and the action won't stop until 12:55, when the first and only Moto2 qualifying session ends. When I speak to Nicky Hayden after qualifying, he mentions that he'd gone better in the morning, then catches himself, because the morning session was at 8:00 p.m. Hayden said by the time he got back from the track Friday night, had dinner and went to bed, it was 5:00 a.m.
Hayden appears to be on the right path after his worst season in MotoGP. At Qatar last year, he qualified 16th out of 17 and finished 12th, a harbinger of most of the season. Hayden worked relentlessly with the team, spending considerable time at the race shop outside of Bologna, and his results gradually improved. The switch to a big bang engine and new chassis were the final pieces that he believes will translate into a much improved season. Hayden qualified ninth fastest, just behind Edwards. Already he had hope.