Qatar MotoGP race called off

The organisers have announced that re-running the race on Monday is "under consideration", but no decision has yet been made. The teams are currently being consulted on possible solutions.

Rain started falling as the riders prepared to leave the grid for the formation lap, and the precipitation then rapidly increased, leaving the circuit awash.

With the riders adamant that it was unsafe to race on the floodlit circuit in the rain because of the reflection from the artificial lights on the wet surface, there was no choice but to abandon the event for tonight when conditions failed to improve.

After a meeting of the team managers in race control, the decision not to try and race tonight was taken just after 23:30 local time, half an hour after the scheduled start.

Earlier the 125cc race had been red flagged after just four laps due to a rain shower.

If the Losail race is not held tomorrow, the 2009 MotoGP season will instead commence with the Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi in a fortnight.

A further meeting between the organisers and team managers will take place at midnight local time to decide whether the race will take place on Monday.