Yesterday I learnt that a dear friend is terminally ill in hospital. I will be visiting her later today. As a result, my report on today's MotoGP Qualifying Practice from Istanbul will be posted later than I normally hope to post them.

After the surprises and upsets of Jerez, everyone was wondering how realistic the picture was which had emerged, and how Rossi's 14th place would affect the standings. Qatar was Rossi's chance to set the record straight.

The trouble was, that the new generation of riders, which had elbowed their way to the front at Jerez, was showing signs of repeating this performance at Qatar. Although Pedrosa, who had shone at Jerez, was having a much harder time at Qatar, Stoner, the other newcomer who'd done so well in Spain, had led qualifying all weekend, and was the second youngest pole sitter since a certain Fast Freddie Spencer. Rossi, who had been battling chatter in Jerez, and during qualifying, was only 6th on the grid, not far enough ahead to be sure of avoiding getting caught in first corner tangles, like the one which had cost him so dearly two weeks ago. Then there was the small matter of Loris Capirossi, the winner in Spain and championship leader, on the Ducati, looking more and more like a championship winning machine all the time.

MotoGP warm-ups are generally fairly uneventful, and unspectacular affairs. The only time they are of any real interest is if it's been dry during practice, and it's raining on race day. Today's warmup at Qatar was, if not meaningful, at least spectacular.

Throughout all three Free Practice sessions, it was clear that Qatar was about two men: One, Kenny Roberts Jr, a seasoned veteran returning to form; The other, Casey Stoner, a young upstart who came within spitting distance of winning the 250cc championship last year. At the end of qualifying, only one name remained.

I've created a Google Earth file of the tracks used for this season's MotoGP races. You'll need to download Google Earth to use these files, which sadly only runs under Windows and OS X. However, if you have any other software which accepts longitude and latitude coordinates, you can change the file name from MotoGPTracks.kmz to MotoGPTracks.zip, and use your favourite compression tool to unzip the file, which will unpack a file in XML format called doc.kml.

At the start of the MotoGP era, speculation was rife that the entry class for the senior class was no longer the 250s, as it had been for years, but rather the Superbikes, where experience of big torquey four strokes was felt to be a possible advantage in the new class. Tyres with too little grip for the power output helped reinforce this impression.

But as grip increases, with tyres and engine management learning to sing in perfect harmony, the route to MotoGP is shifting back to the 250s, just like during the 500cc period. Back in the days of the 500s, few riders tried to make the switch from Superbike to 500cc, because they were such totally different beasts, requiring wildly different riding styles. The only successful route to 500s in the 90's was through the "Stroker School" of 125s and 250s.

The coming of the four strokes to MotoGP changed all that. All of a sudden, riders needed to be able to muscle a heavy, torquey (well, relatively) bike around the track, and a horde of Superbike riders made the switch. Only the very best made a successful transition (Bayliss and Edwards), but the nature of the bikes at least made it possible (Bayliss' fantastic showing in the early Superbike races this season demonstrated his vast talent). The only way to ride the first generations of MotoGP bikes was to brake late, stuff it through the corner, and stand it up as soon as possible, so you can open the throttle without the thing spitting you off.

It was a strange start to qualifying, as Cardoso blew up the engine on his Pramac Ducati during the first out lap, and spewed oil all over the track. Next thing we know, Rossi is crashing out, followed 20 seconds later by the almost comical spectacle of multiple flying motorcycles. Comical to me, at least, as it wasn't my ass sliding over the tarmac as million dollar machines fly overhead. In the end, Elias, both Kawasakis, KRJR and possibly Cardoso ended up together in the gravel trap. The organisers were arguably a little slow, and should probably have red-flagged qualifying after Rossi went down, but as soon as the big group went, qualifying was stopped.

10 minutes or so later, qualifying restarted. The first 30 minutes or so tend to get used to try out race tyres, so times were frankly pretty slow for a while, until Nakano set a pretty fast time, a low 1'40. Then, at the 30 minute mark, out of nowhere Capirossi sets out a 1'39.2, taking advantage of the track having gone quiet.

For the next 20-odd minutes, no one got anywhere near Capirossi's time, and even after all the riders were out on their best qualifying tyres, there were several people who were faster at the first two intermediate timing points, but Capirossi must have been blindingly fast in the third section, as everyone was losing around half a second or more round that part of the track, and where they'd been a tenth, or at least several hundredths of a second faster at intermediate 2, at intermediate 3 they were over half a second behind again. Gibernau was very fast in the first half of the track, but kept losing out in the second half. Eventually, Capirossi put in an astonishingly fast time, just missing out on a 1:38.