MotoGP preview: Rd1, Losail, Qatar

Losail came onto the world championship calendar back in 2004 and has been the season-opening round since 2007, when Australian Casey Stoner came up with the goods in his first ride on the factory Ducati. Losail is one of the longest tracks on the calendar at 5.38km, and comprises 10 right-hand corners and six lefts as well as a slipstream-friendly 1km long start and finish straight. But it's a tough slog: sand blowing onto the circuit can make tyre choice critical, and when the MotoGP race is held at 9:00pm local time the temperature will still be hovering in the mid-20s, alongside high humidity.

Other than a few injury niggles here and there, the 25 MotoGP riders will step up to the plate at Losail fit and ready for action, including Australian rookie Jack Miller on the more potent-for-2015 production Honda. The addition of Suzuki and Aprilia to this year's field is a boon for the championship as the battle for Factory honours takes on a wider dimension – although Aprilia is still underdone -- while in the Open ranks, where Miller will reside, newcomers like ex-world superbike stars Loris Baz and Eugene Laverty are race-hardened and ready to show their wares. Sixteen of the bikes will have Factory status in 2015, and the balance Open.

2015 RIDER LISTS

A funny thing happened the other week: world champion Marc Marquez didn't complete a MotoGP pre-season test at the top of the timesheets on his factory Honda. It happened at Losail from March 14-16, with Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso pipping Marquez by 0.184s, although there were mitigating circumstances: the last day in the desert was an inexplicable washout, just when Marquez normally fires the blowtorch. And there's nothing to suggest Marquez can't turn the championship on its head from round one, just like he did in 2014. But for Ducati, it was a brilliant final shakedown for its new GP15 scalpel, with Dovizioso's teammate Andrea Iannone finishing in third ahead of Yamaha pairing Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo, with Dani Pedrosa (Honda) in sixth. That could turn out to be the big six in 2015, while Cal Crutchlow, now on a factory-spec Honda after leaving Ducati, has showed some good speed during pre-season, as have Yamaha satellite pairing Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith. Suzuki duo Aleix Espargaro and rookie Maverick Vinales have produced impressive bursts on the Suzuki to suggest they'll be sniffing about for top five finishes in 2015 – although Losail may be too soon – and in the Open ranks Miller hasn’t been too far adrift of the front-runners and managed to close the gap in the final test. Aussies Anthony West and Remy Gardner will be competing in Moto2 and Moto3 respectively at Losail.

Stoner is the most successful rider in Qatar with four wins, including a three-race winning streak from 2007-09, before his final success in 2011. Rossi is next best with three wins in 12 attempts, while Lorenzo is the only other multiple winner with successes in 2012-13 – and he was leading last year's race before he crashed out and Marquez went onto outlast Rossi in a thriller. Pedrosa's also a regular on the Losail podium with four thirds and a second since 2007, but apart from that very few riders have been given a look-in, apart from Dovizioso's third place in 2010. In the intermediate Moto2 class, no rider has won more than once since Lorenzo in 2006-07. In Moto3, Nico Terol won in 2010-11, and since then Vinales, Luis Salom and Miller have done the business, so we will have a new winner this season.

The three world championship races will be held over the following distances: