Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation receives circuit award

Nasser Khalifa Al-Attiyah, the President of the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF), received the prestigious ‘Circuit of the Year’ award from senior MotoGP officials at the end-of-season awards’ ceremony at the Palacio de Congresos in Valencia on Sunday evening.

Qatar’s Losail International Circuit was chosen by a panel set up by the International Road Racing Teams’ Association (IRTA) for its excellent organisation and track standards and beat off competition from the other race meetings in the demanding 2009 MotoGP calendar.

Al-Attiyah received the award from Herve Poncharal, President of the IRTA, in the presence of Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna Sports SL, Vito Ippolito, President of the FIM, motorcycle sport’s governing body, senior ministerial dignitaries from Valencia and members of the MotoGP fraternity.

“I would like to give a special thanks to Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, and Sheikh Abdullah Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Special Adviser to the Emir, for their support and backing for the QMMF,” said Nasser Khalifa Al-Attiyah, President of the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation.

“It is our intention to work as hard as possible over the next 12 months to make further improvements at Losail and to try and retain the award we earned this year. It is a dream for us to have taken the Losail circuit from an empty piece of desert to one of the leading race circuits in the world.”

The QMMF award was one of the highlights of the evening, where Italy’s Valentino Rossi also received his ninth MotoGP World Championship title and Japan’s Hiroshi Aohama and Spain’s Julian Simon were also handed their respective 250cc and 125cc world titles.

Qatar’s Losail International Circuit will host official pre-season testing in February and March and will again host the opening round of the MotoGP on April 11th, 2010.