The Michelin clan puts his strengths behind his best contender, BMW Motorrad France 99. The official Belgian team starts from pole position at the 8 Hours of Doha, this afternoon, to try to get in Qatar its first world title. BMW Motorrad France 99 sits nine points behind the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team, ten times and current world champion. BMW is racing here for victory, but also needs to keep the Suzuki away from a final second place to be crowned 2011 World Champion.

On the starting grid like during the warm up this morning, the Michelin clan did his best to maximise the distance between the BMW Motorrad France 99 and the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team, which is running on Dunlop. Michelin's strategy also lies on the two official Yamahas, to deprive the Suzuki from accessing the podium. Yamaha Racing France GMT 94 Ipone and Monster Yamaha YART are sharing that mission and outperformed again the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team during the warm up this morning. The two Yamahas are also racing for a 2011 championship third place.

During the qualifications yesterday, the BMW Motorrad France 99 proved once again their domination by clocking the pole position in 1'59.928 at the average time of their three riders, close to the best lap time scored by Ben Spies (1'59.041), during the 2009 FIM Superbike world championship .

In the Superstock class, the German BMW of Van Zon Boenig Motorsportschool Penz13 RT confirms its ambition for the victory. In this class, the 2011 FIM World Cup winner title is goes to the French Suzuki of Team Motors Events Bodyguard AMT.

The start is scheduled at 1 pm local time (GMT +3) for this semi-nocturnal race, and the finish is at 9 pm.

Follow the 8 Hours of Doha race live with "live timing" from Saturday 10:00 am GMT on FIM-LIVE.COM


A 52 minutes highlights programme of the 8 Hours of Doha will also be broadcast next week on several TV channels around the world:

Speed Channel – Australia
TV Meridiano – Venezuela
Sport TV - Portugal
Moto TV – Italy
ESPN – EMEA
Eurosport
FIM TV

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