Moto GP News
Pedrosa delights home town fans with dominant win at Valencia
By: Garry Morrow
Posted: Monday, 9th November, 2009 : 9:26 AM - - 539 Reads
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Dani Pedrosa has delighted home fans after taking a dominant lights to flag victory at the final round of the 2009 MotoGP season at the Gran Premio Generali de la Comunitat Valenciana, Spain.
The Spaniard was handed a bonus when Pole winner Casey Stoner threw his Ducati down the road on the warm up lap stunning the 94,000 strong crowd. The Australian offered no explanation as to what went wrong saying, "Obviously this is a frustrating and disappointing way to finish the season. There have been plenty of highs and lows throughout the year and we have ended on a low, but with another lesson learnt for next season. We have had this strategy for two years and not had a problem until today so I guess it is better it happened here than in the first race of next season in Qatar!"
Pedrosa was untouchable after grabbing the holeshot and lead the dueling Fiat Yamaha duo of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo the whole thirty lap event that was run in cool, windy conditions. Rossi would eventually get the upper hand taking second ahead of Lorenzo. Colin Edward's finished fourth and with his future team mate Ben Spies finishing 7th, ahead of Andrea Dovizioso the Texan was guaranteed 5th place in the final standings.
“It’s really great to finish off the season with a win, especially here in front of my home fans," Pedrosa said. "I was waiting on the grid with my visor up and I was looking to the side for Casey to arrive, but the marshal in front of me was walking to the side and I was thinking: ‘Where is he going!’ So I assumed something had happened to Casey on the warm-up lap. "In the first few laps I had to be careful because you have to warm up the tyres here, especially on the right hand side. But once that was done, we maintained a good pace and kept focused. In the last laps, the wind was strong and it would have been easy to make a mistake, but I was able to control the gap to Valentino and take this win.
"I was thinking back to Laguna Seca where Valentino closed the gap a lot, and I also knew that Jorge was catching Valentino too, so I just kept pushing. I’m very happy for the team because we struggled quite a lot in practice here, and yet we were able to win in front of all the Spanish fans. I’d like to thank the fans too.
To get third in the championship is not what I was expecting but it’s a nice surprise, even though Casey wasn’t in the race. This season has not been easy and tomorrow’s testing will be important so that we can start 2010 in the best possible shape. This gives us a good start towards that," the Spaniard concluded.
Valencia has been Rossi's Bogie track of late but the newly crowned world champion was happy to have made it to the podium in second position.
"I'm really happy about this result because it was fantastic to be able to ride well at Valencia and it's my best finish here since 2004," Rossi said.
"Of course it would have been better to win but I lost some time at the start battling with Elias and Lorenzo and by that time Pedrosa had gone and at this track it's almost impossible to make up a two second gap. It's not one of our best tracks but after the problems we had all weekend we can be very pleased, we made a great modification in warm-up so thanks to all my guys for this. We've ended the championship on the podium and it's been a great season, another world title and the triple crown for Yamaha, I am very proud. Thank you to Yamaha, all my team, Bridgestone and everyone else, now we will have a little party before we start work on the 2010 bike tomorrow!," Rossi added.
Lorenzo was lucky to take third after almost coming off in spectacular style.
"I had some good fights at the start and I was feeling quite strong but then I made a big mistake in the slow corner and I was lucky not to crash, so Valentino got by," Lorenzo explained.
"I was in a bit of pain and I took some time to recover,\ and by then the gap was a bit too big to catch him. Anyway I'm happy to get another podium in Spain and I am so proud to have finished second in the championship; I want to thank everyone, Yamaha, Bridgestone and all my team, because we have worked so hard and this is a great achievement in just our second season. Now I can't wait to start testing the new bike and I look forward to being even stronger next year," Lorenzo added.
Colin Edwards maintained an impressive pace to sit comfortably in fourth position and remain on course for fifth overall. But Divizioso then produced a dazzling charge through the field to move into seventh position on lap 16.
That meant fifth place would go to Dovizioso with no further position changes. But there was one final dramatic twist in arguably Edwards' best ever MotoGP campaign, thanks to new Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider Ben Spies.
The Texan's brilliant Yamaha debut ended with him passing Dovizioso on lap 25, a move that secured Edwards his hard earned but thoroughly deserved fifth place in the final points tally.
“Things really fell my way today but over the course of the season I feel like I really deserve fifth place in the championship," Edwards said.
At best I was thinking I could finish fifth in the race but then I saw Casey wasn't on the grid and immediately I thought ‘well, there's some more points up for grabs.' I was doing the best I could but wasn't sure where Dovizioso was. It turns out Ben got by him and that point proved crucial. I gave him a big hug after the race and anything he wants me to buy him, he can have it. I'm glad he adapted so quickly to the Yamaha because him riding so well is what got me that fifth overall and I'm really looking forward to working with him. To finish fifth in the championship is a great feeling when you look at the talent in front of me," Edwards added.
Ducati's Nicky Hayden had one of his better outings ending the season with a 5th place finish, just ahead of Toni Elias in 6th.
“I thought it might be possible to do a little better than that today but I didn’t get the best start. The clutch was slipping a little bit down the first couple of straight-aways and I lost some positions. After that I managed to pull myself up again and from there it was a case of doing my best to try and bridge the gap to Colin (Edwards)," Hayden said.
Spies had the aim of a top ten finish but far exceeded that with an impressive 7th.
“It was a good day, It’s been a dream first weekend for us, to get seventh on a track I don’t particularly favor is pretty cool, the feeling is the same as winning a superbike race," Spies said.
Dovizioso finished 8th ahead of Mika Kalio and Alex de Angelis rounding out the top ten.
An unhappy Dovizioso said, “We overtook a lot of riders in the race, but I cannot be happy with this result because we lost fifth place in the championship, and keeping that position was our target today.
Teams now go into three days of testing before taking a well earned break.
Main Photo: Dani Pedrosa on his way to a Spanish Victory
Credit: Honda
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