MotoGP set for historic debut

From Marlboro Ducati

On Friday, with an extended free practice session of an hour and a half, the MotoGP World Championship will take to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the very first time.

The mere mention of the legendary venue, built back in 1909, stirs the passion of fans all over the world, who consider it a temple of speed and a theatre of motorsport dreams made famous by the Indy 500-mile car race.

The popularity of MotoGP in the US is on the rise and it is no coincidence that, alongside Spain and Italy, America is one of only three countries to host more than one Grand Prix over the course of the season. Circuit organizers are predicting weekend crowds of over 150,000, amongst which will be Ducatisti representing the 60 Ducati Clubs across America. They will make their presence felt at Indy, taking over an entire grandstand to show their support for Casey Stoner and Marco Melandri.

The Australian travels on the back of two disappointing races, in which he has once again demonstrated his undoubted speed but has been unable to turn it into a solid result. However, Stoner remains as competitive as ever and he is determined to prove it over the final five races of the season - starting at Indy.

Melandri has shown improvements over the past few weekends and has set himself the target of a better starting position as he looks to consolidate his progress with a top race result this weekend.

"Just to walk into the legendary Indy circuit for the first time will be a huge emotion," said Livio Suppo, Ducati MotoGP project director. "Casey has an incredible ability to adapt to new things so I think he can do really well on a circuit that is unknown to everybody. We're hoping that the problems he had with his wrist at Misano don't prevent him from riding at his maximum this weekend.

"Casey underwent a CAT scan last week, which showed that the scaphoid he fractured and had operated on back in 2003 has never completely healed. With the support of a pool of doctors over the next few weeks, Casey will decide if another operation is going to be necessary."

The MotoGP circuit will use only a part of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway track, namely a large section of the start-finish straight and part of the south-eastern corner of the oval. The rest of the track is on the infield, a modified version of the tight and twisty F1 layout but running in the opposite direction.

The surface has been re-laid recently and the teams and riders are hopeful that tire tests carried out in July will have at least laid some rubber down.

Eighteen big screens will allow the fans to watch the action from every angle from Friday morning, when the MotoGP riders will have a 90-minute first free practice session to get used to the circuit.