Ryder Notes By Julian Ryder
Saturday, March 25, 2017
When MotoGP first came to Qatar we raced in delight in October, but the ambient temperature was nudging forty degrees. After a couple of years of those temperatures it was suggested that the race should be held at night under floodlights. After the track had spent another $50-million, equivalent to the original construction costs, installing lighting they wanted to be guaranteed hosts of the first round of the year. So we race in March in the dark at a time of year when it is perfectly possible to race in daytime temperatures.
That means we have to stretch the meeting over four days to avoid the dew point sometime after 10pm when enough water condenses out of the desert air to guarantee lots of front-end crashes. We’ve had rain here before and it has always been understood that it would be impossible to run under lights in the rain because of glare. Well, today we found out it would be impossible to run after heavy rain anyway because the track wasn’t designed with any significant drainage. Massive storms overnight saturated the ground and even though most of the tarmac dried there were rivers running across the track in several places, standing water and flooded run offs. There wasn’t a chance to test Loris Capirossi’s suspicion that it might be possible to run in the wet under floodlights.