Monthly Archives: March 2023

For the last three years the rider commencing his World MotoGP Championship campaign has not even finished on the podium at the opening round. Both Joan Mir in 2020 and Bagnaia last year did not finish their first races while Fabio Quartararo was fifth in 2021.

It surely comes as no great surprise that two Italian legends who dominated their respective decades of Grand Prix racing lead the charts. Both of them also started successful World Championship campaigns by winning the opening race on different makes of machines. Giacomo Agostini did it six times on the MV Agusta and then brought Yamaha their first ever Premier class title in 1975. His modern day counterpart Valentino Rossi split his five opening day Championship campaigns between Honda and Yamaha.

Harold Daniell won that first ever Premier class Grand Prix at the 1949 TT races on the Isle of Man, but it was Les Graham who became the first ever World Champion. It was another seven years before the winner of the opening race became World Champion. John Surtees brought MV Agusta success at the TT and then the World title in 1956. The only man to win World titles on two and four wheels went on to do it three more times.

Mike Hailwood did it three times for the all-conquering MV team, not surprisingly at the TT but also twice at Daytona in America in 1964/65. Barry Sheene won the opening round twice to kick-start successful 500cc campaigns at his beloved San Carlos in Venezuela and Le Mans. Surprisingly multi–World Champions Kenny Roberts, Freddie Spencer, Wayne Rainey and Eddie Lawson only did it once while five times World Champion Mick Doohan only twice at home in Eastern Creek and Shah Alam in Malaysia. Fellow Australian Casey Stoner won the opening round in Qatar twice and then brought World titles to both Ducati and Honda in 2007/11. Jorge Lorenzo brought Yamaha success in Qatar in 2012 leading on to his second MotoGP™ title. Two years later the reigning World Champion Marquez won the opening round under Losail floodlights and went on to retain his title

That opening round is always long awaited and so special. For those 17 years it was the Losail International Circuit in Qatar that had the privilege to raise the curtain and switch on the lights although in 2020 the MotoGP™ class had to start in Jerez because of Covid restrictions. The season officially started in Qatar with just Moto3™ and Moto2™.

The 2020 season with those Covid restrictions was a nightmare and brought back memories of my first year as a Grand Prix reporter in 1980. Both opening rounds were cancelled for very different reasons. Lack of money brought the demise of the Venezuelan Grand Prix as I was about to book my tickets to San Carlos. I had booked my flights for the new opening round at the Salzburgring in Austria. Only a phone call from Barry Sheene telling me you could not even get into the snowbound paddock let alone race 500cc Grand Prix motorcycles kept me at home. We did get to Austria a year later for the opening round although the first day of practice was cancelled because of snow.

Then MotoGP™ spread its wings and took on the world with some incredible opening round venues. In 1982 Kenny Roberts won a classic battle with Barry Sheene and a young Freddie Spencer at Buenos Aires in Argentina just three days before the start of the Falkland’s war. A year later we pricked our conscience by going to Apartheid-ridden South Africa. We returned to Kyalami for the next two years happy that we had continually broken the Apartheid laws and restrictions. In 1986 Jarama was the last European circuit to host the opening round for 19 years as the spotlight settled on Suzuka in Japan. For many of us the 1987 Grand Prix was our first ever trip to Japan. We soon got used to it with the Suzuka circuit staging the opening round for the next six years. I think with Japanese bikes dominating, it was the perfect venue to start the proceedings.