Nasser Bin Khalifa Al-Attiyah, President of Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation, is in an upbeat mood. He has reason to celebrate. History is in the making this March when the Gulf state of Qatar stages the opening race of the new MotoGP season.

The Qatar Grand Prix – at the $58m Losail International Circuit near Doha – will be first in MotoGP's 48-year history to take place at night. The 22-lap race gets under way at 11pm local time on March 9 and Qatar is expected to set the benchmark for night racing, with Casey Stoner starting the defence of his MotoGP world title under floodlights against aces like Dani Pedrosa, Valentino Rossi and James Toseland.

Attiyah acknowledges its importance, saying: "We are setting a trend of night races. It will be opening a wide spectrum of business for people associated with night GP. Already people from different countries are working to get the technical details of our lighting model.”

‘History is in the making this March when the Gulf state of Qatar stages the opening race of the new MotoGP season.’


On November 10 last year, the same venue staged the last round of the 2007 FIM Endurance Championship, hosting 27 teams in a race that was conducted for eight long hours.

Attiyah says: “The staging of the day-night endurance race has been a huge experience for QMMF. I have to give credit to my entire team for the smooth conduct of the race. To co-ordinate things between 800 people is not an easy task. We have been training the people during the local events and preparing them for the international races. The endurance day-night race is a big learning curve for them.

"We need to build a culture for motor sport and we need to get the entire families and children to come and we are working in that direction, to give side entertainment for the families and children along with motor sport events.”

As of now Qatar does not have any plans to bid for a Formula One Grand Prix, with the QMMF President explaining: "Presently our hands are full with the three events – MotorGP, Endurance Race and Superbike championship. We are the only country which is hosting the three events and we would stick to it. With two neighbouring circuits in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi hosting Formula One events, we do not have any plans to host  F1."

But his immediate plan is to talk to neighbouring countries, starting with the UAE, about the launch of road racing championships for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. "For any motor sport to flourish in any country you need to have karting, road racing and off-road championships along with rallying," Attiyah said. "We need to develop and take motor sport to new heights in the entire region of GCC countries. By competing against each other we can take it to a higher level and that would help us in competing with drivers and riders from other regions."

Among his futue plans, Attiyah, who has been president of QMMF for four years, said that a marshalling club was in the offing. And he also added that an academy was preparing young drivers for off-road races and drag racing.

Safety of the spectators and the riders is of utmost concern for the QMMF president and for that he says there needs to be a co-ordinated system in place and which he says they have built up over the years. "We give equal importance to safety of the riders and safety of the spectators," he said.