The 2015 MotoGP season begins this weekend. The opening event will take place in Losail, Qatar, and will feature Marc Marquez as the defending champion of the title, which he won surprisingly last year.
The 2015 MotoGP will have 18 stages and will be crowned with the return of the factory Suzuki team, which had made its last participation in 2011. Another novelty is the arrival of the Italian Aprilia, holder of 38 titles in the 125 categories, 250 and in the main category.
The strongest teams, Honda HRC with the RC213V and Yamaha with the YZR-M1, kept their driver pairings for this year. Honda has Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa, while its main competitor will have Valentino Rossi and the Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo. Ducati, third force in the category, assembled a “home” team to drive the GP15 with two Italians, Andrea Iannonne and Andrea Dovizioso.
On the Aprilia RS-GP, the duo is Álvaro Baustista and Marco Melandri, the latter returning to MotoGP after spending a few seasons in the Superbike World Championship (WSBK). Suzuki will go with Spaniards Aleix Espagaró and Maverick Viñales, riding the GSX-RR.
The bikes will continue to be prototypes with engines with a maximum of four cylinders and a cubic capacity that can vary between 800 cm³ and 1000 cm³. Pistons must have a diameter of up to 81 mm and two-stroke engines are not allowed, as well as supercharging through a turbo or mechanical compressor. The transmission must have a maximum of six gears.
