It isn’t just the quality of the bike or the talent of the rider that makes for a brilliant motorcycle race. It isn’t even a last lap dash between three amazing riders on astonishing machines that goes right down to the wire and a photo finish. The actual racing circuit plays its part too, presenting these top riders with all kinds of challenges from getting the entry points right into the corner, to getting it stopped for a tricky hairpin and getting your breaking point spot on at the end of a 200mph straight.

The final point there is especially key with this week’s circuit profile. Lying on the outskirts of the Qatar desert, the Losail International circuit boasts the longest straight on the MotoGP calendar. The start-finish straight measures 0.664 miles, with riders frequently getting up to around the 300kph mark. In fact, at this year’s opening round of the Championship, Hector Barbera set a new circuit record when he racked up a top speed of 342.3kph on the Pramac Ducati.

The circuit itself opened back in October 2004 and cost $58 million to construct in the desert just outside the capital city of Doha. The track flows around 5.4km of desert and AstroTurf – making it the third longest in the championship – and became the first MotoGP circuit to host a floodlit race back in 2008 after riders complained of heat exhaustion and a lack of grip during the midday Qatar sun, with Australian Casey Stoner – then with Ducati – taking victory that day.

There was another first for the Losail circuit a year later, as it was the scene of the first washed out race. Yes, even tracks in the middle of the desert aren’t safe from the torrential downpours! The first time this happened in twenty years of racing.

At the 2012 race, it was Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo who took the victory, edging Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa into second, and Stoner – who lead for the majority of the race – into third, while the Tech 3 Yamaha duo of Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso finished fourth and fifth respectively after a battle which lasted the whole race.

Starting from pole for the first time since the United States Grand Prix, Lorenzo couldn’t keep up with Stoner in the early exchanges but gradually reigned the World Champion in when the Aussie suffered fitness issues – not to take anything away from Lorenzo, or Pedrosa for that matter – who kept up consistent pace and lap times throughout to fight back and prevent a fourth successive Honda victory.

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