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Qatar review: The dawn of a new era

Casey Stoner's victory in Qatar on Monday night was one of several firsts. Beyond the obvious, there was a much more significant landmark... Welcome to MotoGP's carbonfibre era.

In Qatar last weekend, Casey Stoner won on the all new GP9 Ducati Desmosedici - an all new carbonfibre chassis crafted by Ducati Corse from all things technological. It didn't just win the race, it utterly murdered the opposition. Fastest in all three practices, the two warm ups, the fastest lap of the race on his second flying lap, and victory 7.7 seconds ahead of an eight-time world champion.

Weekends when riders have such dominance are few and far between, but that weekend - or weekday night - in the desert was memorable for many in the red garage of the works Ducati squad because it was their fourth season-opening race victory on the bounce. The last time Ducati did not win the season opener was Valentino Rossi back in 2005 after he clashed with Sete Gibernau at the last corner at Jerez - a while ago.

"The McLaren in 1981 had much more carbonfibre in than we had in our car. The most at that time, in fact. Ours had around 50 per cent carbon in, but it was the 1982 ATS designed by Gustav Brunner that was actually the first full 100 per cent carbon chassis. I didn't get a full 100 per cent carbon car out until 1985, but I did get some carbon brakes on a car with an eight-year lead ahead of the rest. That was in 1976."

Before then, Murray had designed a bike frame for Colin Seeley - a G50 Norton frame - but it was three times stiffer than the previous bike and no one could ride it.

So why the gap before carbon got to the top of the podium last Monday night?

Well, first and foremost the 500cc/MotoGP class was dominated by the Japanese since MV last won in 1974. Secondly, the Japanese, and also Ducati, have welded and made metallic chassis that gave the rider a feel of where the thing was going to let go, rather than being perfectly stiff. Ducati made it one of its major marketing points. It became as Ducati as the thing being red. Hell would freeze over if they had anything else.

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