The first round of the 2008 season will kick off at Qatar on Saturday 23rd February, therefore this test will be a valuable early marker for all the competing teams at the first track to be revisited in full race mode.

This up and coming season will see the Championship embrace twin-cylinder machines of up to 1200cc from now on. To ensure that no single format of machinery dominates, the new machines will run with air-intake restrictors and greater dry weight than the 1000cc fours, and by regulation the engines on the twins are now much closer to stock than any previous incarnation of Ducati race machinery.

Former World Champion,Troy Bayliss and his newly signed team-mate Michel Fabrizio will get their first chance to run their Ducati 1098F08 machinery against some of their 2008 competitors at Qatar, with this test expected to be just as valuable for the teams set to take on the latest desmo creation as it will be for Ducati itself. Much is expected of the new machine, even in privateer form, but as always at these development tests, only one designated development team per manufacturer will be running.

All three of Hannspree Ten Kate Honda's 2008 riders will test at Qatar, albeit not all riders on all three days of the test. New signings Ryuichi Kiyonari and Carlos Checa, plus Ten Kate's upwardly mobile 2007 World Supersport Champion Kenan Sofuoglu, will lap Qatar on 2007-spec machinery, as the new Honda Superbike is not yet available in race trim.

The new Ten Kate Honda riders have superb track records in their previous careers, and they will be vying from the outset to replace outgoing World Champion, James Toseland, as the lead rider in the squad.

The only team with an unchanged rider line-up is the Yamaha Motor Italia squad of championship runner-up Noriyuki Haga and double World Champion Troy Corser. The Yamaha R1, which came within two points of the championship last year with Haga at the controls, has proved potent, and even in its second model year is fully expected to be a force to be reckoned with again.

New Alstare Conrona Extra Suzuki star Fonsi Nieto has already tested the GSX-R machine in Europe, and to great effect, while long-time team member Yukio Kagayama is also travelling to Qatar to test.

The PSG-1 Kawasaki Corse team will not be at the Qatar tests, as they do not have their 2008 machinery ready for track action at present.

Two former World Supersport Champions head up the entry to the Qatar development tests, with Andrew Pitt now one of two new signings in the Hannspree Ten Kate Honda squad, and Fabien Foret back racing for the Yamaha once again.

New Hannspree Ten Kate Honda signing Jonathan Rea is still recovering from knee surgery, and will therefore miss this test, but serial WSS race winner Broc Parkes will work in unison with Foret to turn the all-new YZF-R6 Yamaha into a race winner from the very first round.

Another new WSS machine, from an entirely new manufacturer to WSS racing, will also be in Qatar. Stefano Caracchi will run both Gary McCoy and Paul Young at these tests, on the Triumph 675 Daytona; a unique three-cylinder machine which has already proven to be a potent weapon on British racetracks in national racing.