91Èȱ¬

Nice article Matt, insightful analysis. Its great to have the season running again.

Excellent performance from Cal and Jorge. I like the contrast between the Honda's power and the Yam's handling which is still there this year. It creates some competition around the lap, although it would be great to see the Yam a bit faster on the straights to avoid the inevitable overtake. The Tech3's looked solid and I hope that they can close up with the 'aliens' as only having 3-4 of them now is a shame - need some more competition up front. Less likely that the Ducatis will close that gap quickly. Any insight on the difference between Vale and Nicky this weekend? Didn't expect much from them in Qatar despite the promise but equally didn't expect to see such a gap between riders on the same bike.

Shame that the Beeb seemed to pull the red button coverage of quali? Golf is no substitute. Surely its not hard to have two red button options... Keep up the good work though.

Great ride from Colin Edwards by the way.

how do you think the German fella will get on once he's "settled in to racing" on the big bikes? looks promising to me!

fantastic ride from Cal. I'm rooting for him this season, no question. I wish he would stop saying in interviews something about 'proving a few people wrong'. Just ride the wheels off it and the results will come. If his start had been better and he was not stuck behind his team mate, it's possible he could have caught Stoner and been on the podium!

Nice article Matt, but let's not heap even the slightest expectation on Cal's shoulders. It did for JT in a big way, and after a really good start he just went further and further back down the grid. It was quite painful to watch, back then, a symptom of which was his falling off at Donington in qualification and the race first corner. Much later there was his disqualification at Laguna Seca and finally seeing MotoGP newbie Ben Spies easily out compete him. Now Spies isn't finding things so easy himself, after promising so much, despite being on factory machinery. If it was me, I'd occasionally mention Cal in despatches and let him concentrate on his riding. When he asks you why he isn't getting much coverage that'll be the time you'll know you've given him just the right amount.

Hope Bradley is feeling better too. The inaugural Moto3 race was better than I was expecting, though that 250cc single cylinder drone might annoy, after a while. Neither deep nor high. Shame they're not either 250 twins or 450 singles. Good luck to Hudders for the rest of the season, and wish us well against Reading this weekend..!

Cheers

...this is my first, full season as the main anchor so it will be a really exciting year...

Doesn't time fly..? Perhaps someone could change that for you.

I was very surprised by Cal's performance, not so much the superb FP3 and Quali efforts he put in but his race pace. Last year, the only time he showed good solid high-up-the-field race pace was at Catalunya, and that was still only good enough to get him ahead of one factory bike. I actually missed qualifying and didn't see practice for Qatar so didn't get to see what his runs were like, but the times he posted were I thought one lap wonders, until I saw the race.

On the other hand Matt realistically, how well do you think Toseland would have actually done with a 1000cc bike in MotoGP? Jerez and Philip Island in 2008 showed he could race very aggressively against the other MotoGP riders, do you think the reduced importance of corner speed would have helped him find the extra time he needed to bridge the gap from his 6th place finishes to the podium?

PS @secondstain, congratulations on how well Southampton are doing! Hate you and them (in a good way) but won't begrudge you the joy :)

Hi Daggers3

Never did see you at St Marys, mate. Best luck to Dag & Red. Pop across to Not606, the successor to 91Èȱ¬606 and let these good posters enjoy MotoGP without our chatting about footie together. ;-)

Nice analysis, Matt.

What I'd like to know is why some riders (including Crutchlow) had glowing discs under braking at Qatar and others did not. I thought they all had carbon brake discs? Are there variants?

@SecondStain ah never made it down :( But yeah you're right, bikes here only :)

@LollypopMan - I think there are different types of carbon discs, yeah they all use them in dry conditions, but some have lower mass, some have higher. I can't remember which ones dissipate heat less efficiently (might be the higher mass ones) but the ones that DO let out heat more efficiently dont get so hot and therefore bright. Of course, it might just have been down to braking patterns (Cal's SBKish style vs Dovizioso's smooth GP class style) but I reckon Cal chose a different set of discs from Dovizioso.

Cheers for the feedback people...

@TheSecondStain the point of this piece was not to build unfounded expectation but to provide some factual context to that which justifiably exists after such a good result in the opening race & point out that Cal's case is completely different to James'. However, I agree that there is a long way to go & it's important not to get carried away!

@swindonbluearmy I thought Stefan Bradl was very impressive in Qatar - he has been building his speed throughout testing without crashing and has a careful, logical approach. If he keeps improving in the same way he'll be competitive very soon.

@daggersfan3 race pace is established in FP and qualifying... always worth looking at the lap charts on motogp.com - especially if you like a flutter on a Sunday! As for Toseland... impossible to say really but personally I'm sure his style would have suited 1000cc more and it's reasonable to think his MotoGP career would have been very different had it been on the bigger bike

@LollypopMan I asked the same question - Steve Blackburn on Twitter confirmed that Cal was on the low mass discs which do glow more (as less mass to dissipate the heat). I think the advantage is that they 'bite' more than the higher mass discs. But what do I know, I'm a doctor...:-)

Thanks for the comeback, Matt. Of course, I sincerely hope Cal is up to the mark on the Tech3 bike. If the opening race is anything to go by, he's in for a good season, but we know how Qatar can be a misleading pointer. If he's popping in regular top 6-8 for the next few races [excluding getting off the bike] or just beating his mate Dovizioso, I'll know he's up to something good or better. I'm actually quite patient about competing Brits doing really well because they've not done so for so long, and it'll be worth waiting for when it eventually happens.

Cheers

Nice article thanks Matt. Was a decent race to start off the season, and I not judging it too soon, but it does look like we have two different races at the moment with the CRT bikes. I think they are the way forward, so a great job done by Colin Edwards. Bradl was the other standout performance from Qatar.

Cal seems to have taken a step forward, and it seems like he’s learnt a lot in 2011.

Matt, could you have a word with the 91Èȱ¬ about getting qualifying onto the iPlayer please?!