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Ever since Dani Pedrosa's monster highside during the night tests at Qatar just over a month ago, his presence at the first race of the MotoGP season, up this weekend, has been in doubt. The Spaniard came down hard during testing when track temperatures cooled, but his real misfortune was to be speared by his bike as it landed. Pedrosa fractured a wrist and reopened an old knee injury he had just had surgery to fix over the winter, requiring a skin graft to fix.

The wrist injury was painful, but was unlikely to have prevented Pedrosa to have missed the IRTA Test at Jerez, let alone the first race at Qatar. But the knee problem was much worse. The surgery required to fix the problem meant that Pedrosa's knee had to be immobilized for four weeks, and that he would have to build up motion carefully and slowly after that, to ensure the wound does not open once again. The videos of Pedrosa limping about his flat, together with reports emanating from journalists who know Pedrosa personally seemed to suggest that racing at Qatar could well be an impossibility for Pedrosa, rather than just unwise.

The good news for Pedrosa and his fans is that the Spanish star has decided he will attempt to race at Qatar. In his personal blog on the Repsol website, Pedrosa announced that he felt he would be fit enough to race. He said that he was recovering well, but he would only just be fit in time: "The truth is that time has been very tight; when the practice was held in Jerez I could only bend the knee 90º. But over the last ten days it has been getting better and in the end, making use of the time right up to the last moment, we have decided to go to Qatar and race in the first round of the 2009 World Championship."

Pedrosa also frankly acknowledges the risk he is taking. "I am pleased that I can return to racing this weekend, but I have to tell you that I am not 100% fit, so I am well aware that I will be at a disadvantage in Qatar," he wrote. But the Spaniard feels he has no choice if he is to keep his title hopes alive. "Even though I have made good use of the last two weeks and we have made good progress, I am aware that in Qatar I will only be able to win a few points, but points which at the end of the season could be very valuable. The overriding reason being not to begin the second race of the season with a gap of 25 points to make up on my rivals."

And Pedrosa's situation found caught between a rock and a very hard place indeed. If Pedrosa does not ride, he starts the season 25 points behind two of the toughest rivals ever to have graced a MotoGP track. But if he does race, and crashes, he could make his injury much worse, and leave him 25 points behind with the prospect of missing even more races. If the 2009 MotoGP championship is going to be a fair contest between the greatest riders in the world, Dani Pedrosa needs to be fit, and needs to be racing. Here's hoping he can do both.

Ever since Dani Pedrosa broke his wrist and reopened an old wound on his knee, his participation at the first race in Qatar has been in doubt. The skin graft to his knee meant that the Spaniard's leg had to be completely immobilized for 4 weeks. There was little chance that he would ever make it to the IRTA Test at Jerez, but the Repsol Honda team had hoped to have Pedrosa back for the opening race at Qatar.

That was optimistic, and Pedrosa was never going to be at 100% for Qatar, but the possibility of even riding is looking ever more remote. The World Superbike paddock is not the first place you would expect news about MotoGP to surface, but as the series is currently in Valencia, there's a large contingent from the Spanish press present, and wherever the press gather, rumors persist.

The latest rumor among some of the well-informed sections of the Spanish press is that Pedrosa will not be riding at Qatar. His condition is not improving fast enough, and he will instead choose to sit the first MotoGP round out, in the hope of being in better shape to contest the rest of the season. The decision is a sensible one, as the night race at Qatar can prove treacherous, with temperatures dropping rapidly, making setup and grip unpredictable at best. Missing one race would leave Pedrosa at a distinct disadvantage in the championship race, but racing with the risk of crashing and making his injury worse could potentially rule the Spaniard out of title contention.

So far, no official word has been forthcoming from the team, and it is unlikely to emerge until shortly before the race itself. But we should learn soon enough whether this rumor is just that, or whether the MotoGP championship will start its opening round with just 17 riders.

Once upon a time, what seems like an age ago now, there was fictional oil company sponsoring a motorcycle racing team. The sponsor - Venture Petroleum - was part of the back story for a movie being made set against the background of MotoGP, and their - rather handsome - livery featured on Kenny Roberts' KR211V bike. News of the movie sparked a flurry of interest from hardcore motorcycle fans, but tragically, the film never materialized, disappearing in an argument over image rights between the production company and Dorna. The fans heaved a sigh of disappointment, and went back to hoping that one day, somebody somewhere would make a motorcycle racing film to rival the legendary Grand Prix.

That day may be closer than they think. Much to everyone's surprise, the Guandalini Racing Team turned up with their trailer sporting the following logo:

Frankie Chili, team manager told us "we put the sticker on the bike from now on. We have some details to discuss, but they have already signed the contract with Infront Motor Sports." Asked when he thought the movie would be out, Chili said "It's hard to say for me, but we hope next year to be ready. This year we make some shots, and next we show the movie."

With Infront Motor Sports seemingly more willing to help media companies than Dorna, maybe this time the movie will finally get released. It's one event that fans have been waiting for for a long time. 

The atmosphere at the official IRTA tests at Jerez was rather subdued. The global financial crisis has had a palpable impact on the paddock, not least of all the disappearance of the Kawasaki team, now reliant on crates being shipped from place to place, rather than having their own transporter. In an effort to respond to the worsening financial crisis, the FIM and Dorna announced a swathe of measures aimed at cutting costs in the series. 

The measures announced varied from eminently sensible (adding 2kg to the minimum weights), to currently unnecessary (the ban on variable exhaust systems and composite ceramic brakes, which nobody is using anyway), to the completely pointless (the ban on GPS, which is easy but more expensive to circumvent). But the one rule change that is exercising people the most is the "rookie rule" - a rule which some people are calling the "Ben Spies rule" but which could just as easily be called the Alvaro Bautista rule or the Marco Simoncelli rule. 

Under the proposal - which came from IRTA, which represents the teams, rather than the manufacturers - riders eligible for the Rookie of the Year award (basically anyone doing their first full season of MotoGP) would not be allowed to go straight to a factory team, but would have to spend at least a year on a satellite or private team. The reasoning behind the rule is that this would give the satellite teams a shot at signing riders with the publicity value to attract proper sponsorship. 

Of course, in practice, the rule is likely to work completely differently. As Paolo Scalera of GPOne.com pointed out in the press conference announcing the rule, a factory wishing to sign a big name rookie will simply set up their own "satellite" team, leaving the existing satellite teams in the cold, just as happened when Honda set up the "satellite" Nastro Azzurro team with all of Mick Doohan's former crew for Valentino Rossi in 2000. 

Worryingly, this might even end up as the best-case scenario for MotoGP. Promising young riders such as Marco Simoncelli and Alvaro Bautista may decide that if they can't get a factory ride in MotoGP, they'll accept one in World Superbikes instead. With Simoncelli already having tested a World Superbike machine over the winter for Aprilia, this is no flight of fancy. 

And that is certainly the opinion of Paolo Flammini, President of Infront Motor Sports, and the driving force behind the World Superbike series. Speaking to GPOne.com, Flammini said, "I believe that this decision can contribute to making the World Superbike Championship more attractive for young riders." With World Superbike's star rising, who could doubt he is right?