2009 Qatar motorcycle Grand Prix

  2009 Qatar Grand Prix

Race details
Race 1 of 17 races in the 2009 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season
Date	12–13 April 2009
Location	Losail Circuit
Course	Permanent racing facility 5.380 km (3.343 mi)
MotoGP
Pole position
Rider	Casey Stoner
Time	1:55.286
Fastest lap
Rider	Casey Stoner
Time	1:55.844
Podium
First	Casey Stoner
Second	Valentino Rossi
Third	Jorge Lorenzo
250 cc
Pole position
Rider	Álvaro Bautista
Time	2:00.677
Fastest lap
Rider	Hiroshi Aoyama
Time	2:01.752
Podium
First	Héctor Barberá
Second	Jules Cluzel
Third	Mike Di Meglio
125 cc
Pole position
Rider	Julián Simón
Time	2:06.974
Fastest lap
Rider	Julián Simón
Time	2:06.969
Podium
First	Andrea Iannone
Second	Julián Simón
Third	Sandro Cortese

The 2009 Qatar motorcycle Grand Prix was the opening round of the 2009 MotoGP championship. It had originally been due to place on the weekend of 10–13 April 2009 at the Losail International Circuit located in Doha, Qatar. However, the meeting was extended to 13 April, as the MotoGP race was postponed to this date, due to adverse weather conditions on 12 April.^[1] The problems were compounded by the event being held at night under floodlights^[1] for the benefit of European TV viewers.^[2]

Report

The whole Grand Prix was disrupted by a rare event of rain in Doha, coupled with the impossibility of racing in the wet under floodlights. The 125cc race started at the scheduled time, despite rain being forecast sometime during the race. During the third lap rain began to fall, and the race was finally called after the fourth lap. Shortly after, it was decided to consider the race finished, so Andrea Iannone, who was leading at the time the red-flagged was exposed, was declared the winner and half points were given, since they failed to complete two thirds of the full race distance (18 laps).^[3] This was lucky for Julián Simón as he had crashed after the red flag was shown, and manage to recover back to the track, and was thus classified in second.

After this, talk began to decide whether to race the other two classes or not, since racing with rain in the night could pose a serious threat to riders' safety due to the glare off the track. The organizers, together with safety representative Franco Uncini and riders including Valentino Rossi and Loris Capirossi, made several reconnaissance journeys around the track, which was drying after rain stopped to fall. It was ultimately decided to start the 250cc race, 40 minutes after it was originally scheduled to run. The original race distance of 20 laps was reduced to 13 laps, allowing full points to be awarded while not causing a delay to the MotoGP race.^[4] The race went on without problems, and Hector Barbera won the race ahead of a surprising Jules Cluzel. A frantic multi-bike battle for third place ultimately saw Mike Di Meglio finish third after overtaking team-mate Álvaro Bautista and Raffaele de Rosa on the final lap; Hiroshi Aoyama also passed those riders to take 4th place.

MotoGP was kept in its original timeslot. However, shortly before the formation lap, rain began to fall again, and the intensity this time was much higher than the previous. The organisers decided to cancel the event, since the track was too damp to race. After negotiations, it was decided to move the race to the following day, in hope of better weather conditions.^[1] The start time was also moved to 21:00 local time, having originally been 23:00.

The Monday race started without problems. The victory went to Casey Stoner, who made a good start from pole and then led the entire race, pulling a comfortable gap over his opponents.^[5] Valentino Rossi finished second; he tried to catch the Australian, coming as near as two seconds from him, but ultimately he had to settle for second, his Yamaha suffering with tyre problems.^[6] Third was Jorge Lorenzo, coming a distant 16 seconds from Stoner.^[7]

MotoGP classification

Pos	No	Rider	Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Grid	Points
1	27	Casey Stoner	Ducati	22	42:53.984	1	25
2	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	22	+ 7.771	2	20
3	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Yamaha	22	+ 16.244	3	16
4	5	Colin Edwards	Yamaha	22	+ 24.410	6	13
5	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Honda	22	+ 27.263	4	11
6	15	Alex de Angelis	Honda	22	+ 29.883	9	10
7	7	Chris Vermeulen	Suzuki	22	+ 33.627	8	9
8	36	Mika Kallio	Ducati	22	+ 34.755	10	8
9	24	Toni Elías	Honda	22	+ 39.481	12	7
10	14	Randy de Puniet	Honda	22	+ 42.284	7	6
11	3	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	22	+ 48.526	14	5
12	69	Nicky Hayden	Ducati	22	+ 48.883	16	4
13	59	Sete Gibernau	Ducati	22	+ 52.215	15	3
14	33	Marco Melandri	Kawasaki	22	+ 56.379	11	2
15	72	Yuki Takahashi	Honda	22	+ 1:00.286	17	1
16	52	James Toseland	Yamaha	22	+ 1:14.978	13
17	88	Niccolò Canepa	Ducati	22	+ 1:15.028	18
Ret	65	Loris Capirossi	Suzuki	7	Accident	5

250 cc classification

Pos	No	Rider	Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Grid	Points
1	40	Héctor Barberá	Aprilia	13	26:50.940	4	25
2	16	Jules Cluzel	Aprilia	13	+ 0.826	13	20
3	63	Mike Di Meglio	Aprilia	13	+ 6.181	3	16
4	4	Hiroshi Aoyama	Honda	13	+ 6.609	2	13
5	35	Raffaele De Rosa	Honda	13	+ 6.656	14	11
6	12	Thomas Lüthi	Aprilia	13	+ 6.672	9	10
7	19	Álvaro Bautista	Aprilia	13	+ 7.608	1	9
8	14	Ratthapark Wilairot	Honda	13	+ 8.349	12	8
9	15	Roberto Locatelli	Gilera	13	+ 15.032	10	7
10	28	Gábor Talmácsi	Aprilia	13	+ 20.348	6	6
11	55	Héctor Faubel	Honda	13	+ 20.465	5	5
12	48	Shoya Tomizawa	Honda	13	+ 28.402	16	4
13	52	Lukáš Pešek	Aprilia	13	+ 28.906	15	3
14	6	Alex Debón	Aprilia	13	+ 33.779	8	2
15	25	Alex Baldolini	Aprilia	13	+ 36.988	17	1
16	8	Bastien Chesaux	Honda	13	+ 1:01.730	21
17	10	Imre Tóth	Aprilia	13	+ 1:03.512	18
18	56	Vladimir Leonov	Aprilia	13	+ 1:32.385	20
19	77	Aitor Rodríguez	Aprilia	13	+ 1:38.752	22
Ret	17	Karel Abraham	Aprilia	8	Retirement	11
Ret	7	Axel Pons	Aprilia	0	Accident	19
Ret	75	Mattia Pasini	Aprilia	0	Accident	7

125 cc classification

Pos	No	Rider	Manufacturer	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	29	Andrea Iannone	Aprilia	4	8:37.245	3	12.5
2	60	Julián Simón	Aprilia	4	+ 0.180	1	10
3	11	Sandro Cortese	Derbi	4	+ 5.211	5	8
4	44	Pol Espargaró	Derbi	4	+ 5.769	8	6.5
5	38	Bradley Smith	Aprilia	4	+ 6.650	2	5.5
6	94	Jonas Folger	Aprilia	4	+ 6.701	10	5
7	18	Nicolás Terol	Aprilia	4	+ 6.771	4	4.5
8	17	Stefan Bradl	Aprilia	4	+ 7.592	7	4
9	99	Danny Webb	Aprilia	4	+ 8.169	13	3.5
10	12	Esteve Rabat	Aprilia	4	+ 8.678	15	3
11	77	Dominique Aegerter	Derbi	4	+ 12.232	18	2.5
12	33	Sergio Gadea	Aprilia	4	+ 12.237	6	2
13	45	Scott Redding	Aprilia	4	+ 12.360	11	1.5
14	24	Simone Corsi	Aprilia	4	+ 13.754	19	1
15	14	Johann Zarco	Aprilia	4	+ 13.783	14	0.5
16	16	Cameron Beaubier	KTM	4	+ 13.893	22
17	7	Efrén Vázquez	Derbi	4	+ 14.170	21
18	6	Joan Olivé	Derbi	4	+ 14.452	12
19	8	Lorenzo Zanetti	Aprilia	4	+ 15.310	20
20	73	Takaaki Nakagami	Aprilia	4	+ 16.415	16
21	32	Lorenzo Savadori	Aprilia	4	+ 18.602	23
22	35	Randy Krummenacher	Aprilia	4	+ 19.355	17
23	53	Jasper Iwema	Honda	4	+ 28.034	25
24	87	Luca Marconi	Aprilia	4	+ 28.114	24
25	69	Lukáš Šembera	Aprilia	4	+ 28.199	25
26	5	Alexis Masbou	Loncin	4	+ 28.272	28
27	71	Tomoyoshi Koyama	Loncin	4	+ 28.544	27
28	10	Luca Vitali	Aprilia	4	+ 53.927	30
Ret	93	Marc Márquez	KTM	3	Accident	9
Ret	88	Michael Ranseder	Haojue	3	Mechanical	29
DNS	66	Matthew Hoyle	Haojue			31

References

• "MotoGP official website". Archived from the original on 2009-08-11. Retrieved 2009-04-12.