After months of anticipation and hype, the MXGP World Championship finally got underway at the unique Losail track at Qatar over the weekend. As with any first round of a championship, it was dramatic and full of surprises, so we look at the Top 10 moments from an intense weekend of drama and racing.

Image: Ray Archer.

1. Max Nagl goes 1-1:
While all the focus was on the much anticipated battle between eight-time world champion Antonio Carioli and seven-time American champion Ryan Villopoto, Red Bull IceOne Husqvarna Racing’s Max Nagl stole all the thunder (and then some) by dominating both MXGP races. To tell the truth, Nagl hardly featured in any pre-championship talk, but that made the element of surprise even greater. Nagl went wire-to-wire in both motos, displaying a cool, calm and collected riding style around a challenging circuit. The confidence that a win like that is going to give the Husky racer is huge.

2. Jeffrey Herlings’ finishes a fairytale:
Two-time MX2 champion Jeffrey Herlings has been to hell and back over the past eight months since he broke his femur. He’s been in and out of hospital like an overworked nurse and only got back on the bike just two short weeks before Losail. How much the win meant to him became blatantly obvious when he crossed the finish line and burst into tears with his team. If Herlings can still win both motos at the opening round, Lord forbid the form he’ll be in by season’s end if he stays healthy.

3. Welcome to the GPs RV:
After a surprisingly lackluster eighth place in qualifying, Monster Energy Kawasaki’s star recruit Ryan Villopoto still failed to make much of a splash in the two MXGP motos. In the first race an electrical fault saw him stranded after the gate-drop. He started from dead last, a good seven seconds behind everyone, but managed to bulldog his way to ninth. In the second moto RV2 caught up to Kevin Strijbos in seventh, but couldn’t find a way past and actually lost the position to MXGP rookie Roman Febvre. RV2 finished eighth in Moto 2 for seventh overall. It’ll be certainly interesting to see how he bounces back for the Thailand GP this weekend.

4. Qualifying:
All eyes were on qualifying where we got our first insight into the much-vaunted showdown between Tony Carioli and Ryan Villopoto. AC222 was head and shoulders faster than his US rival, putting his KTM on top of the qualifying box, almost a second faster than other title favourites Clement Desalle and Gautier Paulin. Villopoto chalked up eighth, which effectively turned the initial contest into a bit of a fizzer.

5. Tixier’s got work to do:
2014 MX2 champion Jordi Tixier would’ve come away from Qatar with a big learning point – he’s got to find another gear this year if he wants to defend his title. After qualifying in eighth and almost two seconds a lap slower than Herlings, the newly-mounted Monster Energy Kawasaki racer clawed his way to a sixth in moto one, then a ninth in moto two. To be fair, the Frenchman had a huge crash in the second race, but he enters Thailand nearly a whole race-worth of points in arrears of Herlings already.

Source: Husqvarna.

6. The Aussies:
Qatar offered up some mixed results for our Aussie battlers Todd Waters, Dean Ferris and Meghan Rutledge. Contesting the WMX championship, Rutledge finished the weekend with a solid third overall with 3-4 results from her two races. In MXGP, Todd Waters chalked up a handy 10th in qualifying, then finished a consistent 15-13 for 14th overall. Meanwhile, Dean Ferris has a week to forget and was well off the pace. After qualifying down in 20th, Ferris uncharacteristically went a lap down in the opening race on his way to 23rd, but improved slightly in the second moto for 17th, finishing the weekend in 20th overall.

7. Tough track:
Okay, so Qatar isn’t the most spectacular track on the circuit, and it can be tricky to pass on, but it is unique being held at night under lights (racing during the day in the Middle East would be murder!). The track itself was surprisingly hard pack, with good traction in some spots, but in other sections the conditions changed constantly. It was a little stop-start and featured some gnarly braking bumps by the end of the weekend; conditions which probably suited the European riders more than Villopoto and also played a role in the final result.

8. Rise of the underdogs:
Two riders really burst into the limelight at Losail; Julien Lieber and Roman Febvre. While all the pre-race chatter in MX2 had been about Herlings, Tixier and Dylan Ferrandis, Belgian Lieber raised many eyebrows with his 3-2 result for third overall (he finished the 2014 championship outside the top 10). Meanwhile, in MXGP, rookie rider Roman Febvre took to the class jump from MX2 with ease as he soared to sixth overall in his debut 450 outing. The biggest moment for him came in moto two when he caught and passed Ryan Villopoto, who had been busy trying to sneak past Clement Desalle.

9. Ferrandis vs Herlings:
Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Dylan Ferrandis is looking hungrier than ever this year and seems eager to put some razzle up Jeffrey Herlings. In the opening race the Frenchman caught and passed Herlings five laps in, then led until the final four laps when Herlings rallied to find a way back past and take the win. Granted, Herlings has been shy on bike-time leading up to the GP opener, but early on it looks like Ferrandis could be one of few riders who could hold a candle to the flying Dutchman in 2015.

10. Coincidental crashes:
The second MX2 moto saw all sorts of craziness go down, but the weirdest was when all three front-running Kawasaki riders, Dylan Ferrandis, Jordi Tixier and Max Anstie had monumental crashes within minutes of each other. Ferrandis high-sided out of a corner and was spat over the bars, Tixier tagged the last jump in a rhythm section, then Anstie came up well short on a double and got tomahawked into the ground. Such was the spooky timing, it was almost as if there was sort of witchdoctor back in the pits sticking pins into Kawasaki dolls.