Qatar ready for major night test

The opening race of the 2008 MotoGP season will be held entirely under floodlights over the weekend of 7-9 March, and will become the first ever Grand Prix, two or four wheeled, to be held at night. Formula One will not race under lights until the inaugural Singapore GP in September.

American lighting company Musco, which has considerable experience of night racing events in the United States, created the multi-million dollar project to fully light the Qatari circuit.

The illuminated area will be similar to 70 FIFA football pitches, with a system 50 percent more efficient than any other available lighting system.

The quest to eliminate shadowing means that sufficient light has been provided for a hypothetical street running from Qatar's capital, Doha, to Moscow in Russia.

The power used to provide this huge quantity of light amounts to some 5.4 million watts. Put into perspective, this is enough to provide electricity simultaneously to some 3,000 houses.

The project has come to fruition 167 days after being approved and publically launched at the Misano MotoGP last September.

The two-day floodlit test at Losail is the final winter test before the 2008 MotoGP season commences.

In November 2007 five MotoGP riders took part in an evaluation test that saw the first three corners floodlit, but today's test marks the first time that the complete circuit has been run at night.