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Can Ducati translate their qualifying form into race pace and stop Marc Marquez in his Repsol Honda? Find out as we live blog the start of the Moto GP season from Qatar at 5:00am AEDT.
In Sunday morning’s qualifying session for the race, Ducati maintained their pre-season form, with Andrea Dovizioso winning their first pole position since the 2014 Motegi Grand Prix.
It was Dovizioso’s third pole position of his career and just the third pole for Ducati since 2010.
In good signs for the team, the other Ducati’s were also strong, with Andrea Iannone 4th, Yonny Hernandez 5th for Pramac Racing and Danilo Petrucci in 9th.
They will be looking to replicate that qualifying pace to race form and take victory for the first time since Casey Stoner at the Australian Grand Prix in 2010.
Looking to stop them will be Repsol Honda and Yamaha, who also performed well last night. Back to Back Championship winner, Marc Marquez, will started his 2015 campaign in third position.
The Spaniard, who has won 53% of the races in Moto GP over the last two years, will look to continue his hot form since entering the championship.
Once again he is the favourite for the championship and will be hard to beat if his first two years in the class are anything to go by.
His team-mate, Dani Pedrosa, will be looking to stop him this year and win his first championship in the Premier Class.
He qualified second for this morning’s race and will be looking for his first win at the Qatar circuit.
For Yamaha, with Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, they will be looking to fight back from 6th and 8th respectively in the race this morning.
They would have liked to be higher in qualifying this morning but both know how to race and get to the top.
Rossi in particular, who hasn’t qualified well in recent years in the Moto GP, knows how to come back from poor qualifying positions.
Watch out for both riders this morning.
All focus for Australia will be on Jack Miller, who makes his debut in Moto GP this morning, with the LCR Honda team in the Open class.
To be honest, don’t expect him to immediately get to the top, and mix it with the top guys. His experience in the class, and strength of his bike, will make it almost impossible for him to mix it with the top riders.
He’s gone into the absolute deep end of motorcycle riding by going from Moto 3 to Moto GP. Unfortunately he showed a little bit of that inexperience this morning by crashing in qualifying and finishing in 22nd position.
A top 15 effort would be fantastic for Miller this morning. He’ll get better as the season goes on but don’t expect similar results to Stoner in his first full season of Moto GP.
He just doesn’t have the bike or experience for top five results.
It promises to be a good battle between the Ducati’s and the Honda’s for the race win.
The question for Ducati is their race pace. Can they keep the pace for the duration of the race?
I’m not so sure and the Honda has always been a good bike to race in.
Based on that I can’t see Ducati winning and it should be a battle between Marquez and Pedrosa for the race win.
With Marquez in freakish form over the last two years it is hard to go against him. He should win but this could be the most competitive year of Moto GP in a few years. Bring it on.
Prediction: Marc Marquez.
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