Riders in this year's MotoGP championship are gearing up for this weekend's season curtain raiser: the BMW MotoGP Award.
The 40-minute time trial, now in its sixth year, will be staged Sunday at the Jerez track in Spain with the winner to take home a brand-new BMW Z4 Roadster.
The BMW Award is the first chance of the season to see all bikes and riders compete against each other.
BMW also gives out a Best Qualifier of the Year award at the end of the season.
Sunday's time trial will cap two days of pre-season tests, the last in Europe before the Grand Prix season kicks off in Qatar on March 9.
All eyes this weekend will be on reigning world champion Casey Stoner and five-time MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi, who won the Jerez event for the second time last year.
Stoner, who won the BMW Qualifier Award last year, a BMW Z Coupe', was very fast in pre-season tests at the end of December in his native Australia and pundits agree the Ducati rider is the man to beat this season.
Rossi, who this week settled his dispute with the Italian taxman which had dogged him last year and contributed to his worst season ever, skipped the Phillip Island tests but clocked the best times with his Yamaha in recent tests at the Sepang track in Malaysia.
The Italian rider, who turns 29 on Saturday, will be mounting Bridgestone tires this season, the same that Stoner uses, instead of the Michelin ones which gave him trouble last year.
Many observers believe that for Rossi, who won five consecutive Grand Prix premier titles from 2001 to 2005, this may be a make-or-break season and that if he doesn't win the championship he will quit racing.
Japanese powerhouse Honda is out to regain its dominance of the constructors' championship after losing the title to Ducati in 2007, a year after it won it back from Yamaha.
The Honda factory team has 2006 world champion Nicky Hayden and Dani Pedrosa carrying its colors again this year.
Hayden, riding on Michelin tires, has not been particularly fast in pre-season tests, while Pedrosa is recovering from fracturing his hand at Sepang last month.
Former Ducati rider Loris Capirossi, the oldest rider on the circuit at almost 35, makes his official debt with Suzuki at the weekend.
Capirossi is a former BMW Award winner. Other winners include retired Honda rider Sete Gibernau and Rossi's former Yamaha teammate Colin Edwards.
