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.
