With Repsol riders playing leading roles

_{source: moto.racing-live.com}

After a long and intense wait with the preseason to get ready, the first Grand Prix of the 2006 season will finally arrive this weekend.

The emblematic circuit of Jerez, a talisman circuit for Spanish riders, will be the meeting point for fans from all over Europe looking forward to watch live the first race of the 2006 Motorcycle World Championship, the Gran Premio de España de Motociclismo.

The 2006 calendar, which will start this Sunday in Spain, will move in only one week to Qatar to continue with a short trip to China and Turkey in the next month and a half. After the Turkish Grand Prix, the 2006 World Championship will stay around in Europe, to move on to the United States and continue in Asia and Australia. The culmination of what is expected to be an intense season will be in Spain, this time in Valencia in late October.

For this 2006 season, Repsol and Honda will be counting on a valuable common representation in the three classes. In the MotoGP class, Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden will be in charge of defending the colours of the team that has gathered the largest success in the last ten years in the Championship, the Repsol Honda Team. The same task will be carried out in the quarter-of-a-litre class by Sebastián Porto and Shuhei Aoyama, members of the Repsol Honda Team 250cc. And last but not least, Bradley Smith, at the young age of 15 years, will be the defender of the colours of the Repsol Honda Team 125cc.