Thus spake Charlie Croker at the end of The Italian Job. And I'm sure a similar phrase was used when someone suggested opening the World Superbike Championship about six weeks early. Weather? No problem - we'll run it in the desert. It's not exactly going to rain there, is it?

Um, yes.

Qatar is a lovely little former British protectorate on the Persian Gulf, rich in oil and blessed with a forward thinking and benevolent ruler who believes that having a world class motorcycle racing facility in his country is a Good Thing. It's also rather dry, being in the same area as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. So the logic of holding a race there in February was actually quite sound - summer is just too hot and autumn would conflict with the MotoGP round. Unfortunately (or, if you're a Qatari farmer, then fortunately) it rained more in the week leading up to the race than over the last four years. Combined.

So practice, so important at a circuit that most of the riders had never seen before, became something of a lottery as the rains came, went and then came back. Circuits which don't get wet very often become incredibly slippery when it rains for the first time, and defending World Champion James Toseland was one of the first to demonstrate this as he suffered a huge crash that started in turn 13 and ended with him bouncing off the ground in turn 14. Luckily he suffered no more than heavy bruising, but it certainly made a difference as we'll see later. Also suffering severely were a number of riders who succumbed to a particularly virulent flu virus. The Ten Kate team were particularly hard hit, as were several others. Tightening of the doping regulations means that none of the riders dare even take an over-the-counter remedy for fear of failing a drugs test, so they just have to sweat it out.

Unusually, raceday in Qatar is Saturday, so Superpole was on the Friday. And it rained. Intermittently. That's about as bad as it gets in terms of who ends up where on the grid. Winners included Troy Corser, Yukio Kagayama, Regis Laconi and Sebastien Gimbert, all of whom got fast, dry sessions. They also rode very well, which helped rather. Losers (to the weather, the flu and general bruising) included Toseland, Chris Vermeulen and Frankie Chili.

Saturday saw clouds, sunshine, a nice breeze and more rain. The sun and breeze meant that the track dried fast but the rain made a decision on how to setup and run very difficult to call. But it looked as though slicks would be the order of the day, though, so the riders lined up appropriately shod for the off. Laconi on pole next to Corser with Gimbert and Kagayama making up the front row.

The lights changed and Kagayama, Corser, Pitt and Laconi all went off fast, Kagayama though demonstrating that greyhound like ability to get off the line faster than pretty well anything else and taking an early lead. Corser, though, was a man on a mission and soon overwhelmed his team-mate to take a commanding lead which he continued to extend. Yuki in turn extended a considerable lead over third placed Regis Laconi as early star Pitt faded and fell into the clutches of the pursuing horde. Frankie Chili retired on the first lap, the Klaffi Honda throwing a tantrum and refusing to run, while Jose Cardoso's race was over before it stared, his R1 dying on the warmup lap. Initial fast runner Chris Walker, at one point up in fifth ahead of Nori Haga, faded as well, the Kawasaki seeming to be very fast but perhaps lacking longevity. James Toseland, hoping for a better defence of his title, went backwards from his initially disappointing ninth on the grid to a lowly twelfth before clawing his way back up to ninth.

In fact, the best showings generally came from the new boys, with Kagayama, Abe, Neukirchner and Pitt all acquitting themselves extremely well.

Then it rained. Which meant a hiatus in proceedings while everyone decided whether to change tyres or sit it out, it being far too dangerous to continue on slicks.

So something over half an hour later, with eight laps to run, the riders reformed in the positions they had been running in at the end of lap ten. Corser, Kagayama, Laconi and Pitt made up the front row with Abe, Haga, Vermeulen and wildcard Ivan Silva comprising the second.

Lights out for the second leg and this time Kagayama made the break, scorching off the line and making it stick well and truly from Pitt and Corser. Laconi seemed to be a spent force at first, though two laps in saw the Frenchman make a move to third, getting ahead of Corser a couple of laps later. Kagayama, though, was in a race of his own, rendering futile any attempt by Laconi to close the aggregate gap. Corser, in the meantime, simply had to keep his team-mate in sight to be assured of an overall win having massed a huge 4 second lead in the first leg.

Further back down the field, though, things were happening. James Toseland seemed to have woken up and surged from his ninth place on the grid to seventh in the first lap, hustling past Walker on the third lap and Haga on the fourth to take a well earned fifth place in the leg. Walker in the meantime dropped back, ending up 19th at one point before fighting his way back up. Vermeulen and Muggeridge formed a freight train and remained locked together for the rest of the race.

So overall race one, which was a little processional in many ways, saw the first visit of a Suzuki rider to the top podium slot since Frankie Chili won at Donington back in 2001. Troy Corser's victory drought was even longer, his last victory being earlier in the same season at Valencia when he did the double on the much missed Aprilia Mille. Yukio Kagayama held off a determined Laconi to keep second place making the first ever Suzuki 1-2 by regular SBK riders - Akira Ryo and Keiichi Kitagawa, who did it at Sugo in 1998, being national championship riders who did not compete in the rest of the series.

The stage set for another multi-manufacturer showdown, race two looked promising indeed. And this time it was Aussie newcomer Andrew Pitt on the Yamaha Italia machine who made the running. Well, for the first two laps anyway, before being mugged by Troy Corser, with Kagayama coming past a lap later. For a while it looked as though Corser was on for the double but just five laps later the Australian veteran was comprehensively overwhelmed by the unstoppable force of Yukio Kagayama out to prove a point. Laconi in the meantime had found himself in fifth place having been out dragged by Nori Haga into the first turn, the Japanese actually finishing the first lap in second place. Haga's challenge faded but Laconi really struggled to get past Pitt, finally getting past on lap five and then taking ten more laps to take advantage of Corser's developing tyre woes to take second place, which he held to the chequered flag.

The battle for fourth place had got very interesting indeed, with Pitt, Haga, Toseland, Vermeulen, Neukirchner and Chili all swapping places and, occasionally, paintwork. Fantastically close racing for lap after lap, proving if nothing else that while James Toseland may have had a slightly ropey start to the season he's still got what it takes. And so it proved as, with just five laps to go he took himself up from the back of the pack to the front and then broke clear completely in pursuit of Vermeulen and Chili. Old man Chili had made the break earlier, outstandingly quick on his first full race on the Honda, and clearly inspired Vermeulen who got past and managed to extend a small lead. Toseland in the meantime not only left the rest behind, he reeled in the two Hondas and was eventually pipped for fifth place by the wily Chili by just one thousandth of a second, turning in a couple of fastest laps at the same time.

Fellow Brit Chris Walker had a torrid time, though, dropping back through the field to fifteenth before being comprehensively taken out by an out-of-control Karl Muggeridge who totally failed to get down the inside of the Kawasaki rider and simply collided with him instead.

So where does this leave the championship? Wide open, that's where. Suzuki are back with a bang, there's no doubt about that, and Yamaha and Honda are both ultra competitive as well. Ducati certainly don't have it all their own way, which has to be a Good Thing. This year nobody could reasonably refer to the World Superbike Championship as a Ducati benefit, that's for sure.

It's five weeks until the next race at Phillip Island. It would be a brave person indeed who would bet against Troy Corser and the Alstare Suzuki doing big things there. But this meeting belonged to his team-mate, the irrepressible Yukio Kagayama.

Race One

1 Troy Corser (Suzuki)
2 Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki)
3 Regis Laconi (Ducati)
4 Andrew Pitt (Yamaha)
5 Nori Haga (Yamaha)
6 James Toseland (Ducati)
7 Ivan Silva (Yamaha)
8 Chris Vermeulen (Honda)
9 Karl Muggeridge (Honda)
10 Norick Abe, Yamaha

Race Two

1 Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki)
2 Regis Laconi (Ducati)
3 Troy Corser(Suzuki)
4 Chris Vermeulen (Honda)
5 Pierfrancesco Chili (Honda)
6 James Toseland (Ducati)
7 Norick Abe, Yamaha
8 Max Neukirchner (Honda)
9 Andrew Pitt (Yamaha)
10 Sebastien Gimbert (Yamaha)

Championship Standing after one round:

1 Yukio Kagayama 45
2 Troy Corser 41
3 Regis Laconi 36
4 Chris Vermeulen 21
5= Andrew Pitt 20
5= James Toseland 20
7 Nori Haga 16
8 Norick Abe 15
9 Pierfrancesco Chili 11
10 Ivan Silva 9