Nicky Hayden hopes that the move to a night race will help solve the Losail International Circuit's main downside, during this weekend's 2008 MotoGP season opener.

That downside is an almost total lack of atmosphere, due to the sparse spectator attendance and barren desert location, but the American believes the decision to run the first ever MotoGP night race will help kick the event into life.

"The actual track is really good - the layout is awesome, the grip is good, the surface is good, there's plenty of run-off, the safety's great, it's everything you could want, but you just don't have 100,000 people going wild for their favourite rider and it's missing that bit of history," said the Repsol Honda rider.

"I think running it at night is going to make a difference to that, it's going to be real interesting how the tyres work at night and the temperature and the wind. I think it's gonna be cool, I'm really looking forward to it because I enjoyed riding at night in the tests," he added. "I've spent a lot of time under lights doing dirt track at home, but until the tests here, the only time I'd ridden a road racer in the dark was practicing for the Suzuka Eight Hours in 2003."

Last year, Hayden began a disappointing title defence with eighth position in the first event of the new 800cc era, as the all the Japanese manufacturers suffered badly against the skill of Casey Stoner and the incredible power developed by his Ducati.

One year on and, although the gap to Ducati has been reduced, Honda's factory team will still be using last year's spring-valve RC212V engine design at the 2008 opener - due to performance delays with its brand new pneumatic-valve unit - something that could prove costly this weekend.

"You do need some ponies for that front straightaway [at Qatar] because you come on to it quite slow and you need to accelerate because it's a long straightaway," admitted Nicky.

First practice at Qatar takes place on Friday evening.