Lorenzo wins first race of the season

Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory Racing) took his first premier class conquest at the Losail International Circuit to open the 2012 MotoGP season in the best probable manner, after battling reigning World Champion Casey Stoner and the Australian's Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa for the period of the 22-lap race. It was as well a superb start to the new 1000cc era in MotoGP, as the CRT machines also made their debut in an action-packed race.

Starting from pole for the first time because the US Grand Prix last July, Lorenzo held the lead until the third lap before Stoner tacit first position with a pass on the start/finish straight. Lorenzo then followed Stoner for the majority of the race earlier than passing his rival with three laps to go, and he finally crossed the line 0.852s ahead of Pedrosa who placed second as Stoner ended the race third.

After a complicated weekend which had seen Pedrosa succeed in seventh the Spaniard shot from row three of the grid into third location on the opening lap, and on lap 20 passed his team-mate Stoner with a superb move on the brakes leaving into Turn 1 to take second. Stoner, who had won in Qatar for four of the past five seasons, took his 16th consecutive podium finish as he got his title defence underway.

Ducati: No 1000cc test at Brno

Ducati's 2012 MotoGP prototype will keep away from a head-to-head assessment with rival 1000cc machines from Honda and Yamaha, after the factory announced that this year's 800cc bike will be used at Monday's official post-race test at Brno.

Ducati has already used five of the eight days of 1000cc testing acceptable with MotoGP riders this year - compared with two days for Honda and none for Yamaha.

All the preceding factory 1000cc tests have been detained in private, but that will change on Monday in the Czech Republic with Honda and Yamaha both confirming that their factory MotoGP riders will try 2012 bikes.

However Ducati has determined that both Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden will offer that day to working on the 800'.

“The Test Team tried some electronics updates at Mugello, and we'll use them in the post-race test at Brno to carry on improving the setup and reduce the gap to the lead group," said team manager Vittoriano Guareschi.

"Filippo [Preziosi] will be on hand Monday, and we'll carry on the development work on the GP11.1 with both Valentino and Nicky.”

While Rossi will go on to ride the GP11.1 throughout the grand prix weekend, team-mate Hayden - who completed his first laps on the customized bike during Friday practice at the previous US GP - revealed that he is probable to use the original GP11.

"Obviously the test on Monday will be really significant for us. I'll almost certainly just ride the GP11 on the race weekend and then test the new bike on Monday," said the American.

Rossi and Hayden will start round eleven (of 18) holding fifth and seventh in the world championship, with one podium apiece so far this period.