Since making his Grand Prix debut as a fresh-faced 15-year-old wildcard in the 125cc race at Donington Park back in 2001, Casey Stoner has made no secret of his intention to make his racing career a short one. Even so, the reigning world champion's decision to walk away from the sport now, at the peak of his powers, has come as a huge shock to everybody in the MotoGP paddock.

Always an enigmatic and outspoken character, Stoner cited a diminishing passion for the sport and his disappointment at the current shift away from pure prototype racing as the primary reasons behind his decision, although the fact he became a father just a couple of months ago has surely played a part.

It has long been a mystery to many - and most of the messages I have received on Twitter over the past few hours are testament to this - that a young man could fail to enjoy the money, the adulation and the fame that have come his way due to his unparalleled ability to ride a motorcycle.

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Late last Saturday night, in the front row press conference at the Losail Circuit in Qatar, pole setter Jorge Lorenzo was struggling to find the right words to describe the emerging threat of the man sat immediately to his left.

"This year Cal is more... 'mantequilla'" he finally says, reverting to his native language.

Mantequilla, Spanish for butter, is the word Lorenzo uses to describe his own smooth approach to finding the fastest way around a circuit; a trait he believes he inherited from his mother because of the dextrous way she would flick her knife across his morning toast, using the perfect angle of lean to cover every corner with minimum effort.

The other half of Lorenzo's racing DNA is made up of 'el martillo' (the hammer), the relentless and consistently accurate way he is able to string together lap after lap with metronomic timing.

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After five months of hibernation in the wintry West Yorkshire wilderness it is finally time for me to emerge blinking into 5.4 million watts of light in Qatar, as the Losail International Circuit prepares to bring the MotoGP World Championship firmly back into the spotlight next weekend.

Like most fans of the sport I am a little disappointed that the curtain-raiser to the new season will be limited to Red Button coverage due to scheduling clashes in the packed Sunday evening time slot but that is made up for by my excitement that the following seventeen races will be shown live on the BBCHD channel, as well as on BBC2 (the Qatar race will be repeated in full on both channels later on Sunday evening).

High Definition television is made for the colour and movement of a spectacle such as MotoGP and there will be plenty of extra detail to pick out this season, especially with the switch from 800cc to 1,000cc machinery.

You don't need to be a mechanical engineer to work out that bigger bikes create more power and when it comes to racing this invariably means more excitement.

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