Dani Pedrosa knew what he had to do in today's MotoGP season finale
if he were to reclaim third position in the final 2009 standings. The
Spaniard had a bit of help when Casey Stoner failed to start the race,
eliminating Stoner's chance of taking a third consecutive win and
remaining in the top three of the final points outcome.
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Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda Team. Photo by Bridgestone Corporation.
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All weekend the top riders in the world had to deal with cool
temperatures and very windy conditions which made the race trickier than
normal on the 4.051-km (2.517-mile) circuit but Pedrosa was all smiles
when he received the checkered flag, ending the Valencian Grand Prix,
as the Repsol Honda Team rider had the points to place third in the
championship with today's victory.
"I am very happy for this win because I really wanted it and I was
only thinking for the win here," smiled the Spaniard. "In practice we
struggled a lot but the whole team did a great job. On the first lap
it was difficult to warm up the tyres very well, but after that we had
good pace, actually better than I expected. Towards the end the wind
was coming and it was easy to make a mistake, but we kept a good rhythm
until the end and I am very happy."
Pedrosa qualified second but with the pole man out of the event, he only
had to deal with Jorge Lorenzo who was directly alongside him on the
front row. Both Spaniards wanted to end the season with their homeland
win but the two would have to deal with Valentino Rossi, who could have
jumped into the lead from fourth on the grid.
"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," said Pedrosa.
Using his Honda power, Pedrosa had a great start to take the lead into
the first corner on a track that he knows very well. From that point
on, his determination to win in front of his home fans at Circuit de la
Comunitat Valenciana Ricardo Tormo allowed Pedrosa to take his second
win this season, besting Rossi by 2.630 seconds.
"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," Pedrosa said. "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."
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Valentino Rossi, Fiat Yamaha Team. Photo by Yamaha Motor Racing.
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Rossi had already notched his ninth MotoGP championship and his
Fiat Yamaha teammate Lorenzo only needed to finish the race to earn
the sub-championship. With Lorenzo following The Doctor by nearly
three-tenths of a second across the line to place third, the Fiat Yamaha
team ended one, two in the 2009 riders' standings.
"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. 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,"
said Rossi.
"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," added The Doctor. "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!"
Lorenzo was pleased with his finish especially after his near accident.
Actually he already is looking toward the future: "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. 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," he said.
"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," added Lorenzo.
"Now I can't wait to start testing the new bike and I look forward to
being even stronger next year."
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Podium: race winner Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda Team, second place Valentino Rossi, Fiat Yamaha Team, third place Jorge Lorenzo, Fiat Yamaha Team. Photo by Red Bull GmbH and GEPA pictures GmbH.
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With the season now in the books, Yamaha can celebrate their
back-to-back triple crown: Driver, Team and Manufacturer. "We owe this
great achievement today to the spirited support of the many Yamaha fans
and our sponsors, and I would like to take this opportunity to extend
to all of you my heartfelt appreciation," said Tsunji Togami, Yamaha
Motor Company CEO and president. "We at Yamaha Motor believe that
our participation in MotoGP and our challenge to win titles makes it
possible to share the excitement and deep satisfaction we call Kando
with people all over the world, while also contributing to the marketing
of our motorcycles."
Stoner missed three races this year due to his health but the 2007
champion returned to put on quite a show in the final five races. He
won on his home turf in Australia and followed that up with the victory
in Malaysia. His hopes were high coming into today's event, as was his
confidence in his Marlboro Ducati Desmosedici GP9. However, on the
pre-race installation lap, his Bridgestones were not quite up to the
desired temperature needed for the team's grid strategy.
The Aussie suffered a high-side crash, putting him out of the race:
"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,"
said Stoner. "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!"
Elias was in the lead group in the early race stages, a good showing
for the Spaniard on his Gresini Racing Honda. Starting eighth on the
grid, he had the best start with his rapid move to second place. While
he lost the battle to the two Fiat Yamaha riders, he did slip back but
continued to stay in the top five until his final combatant Nicky Hayden
took fifth near the end by three-tenths of a second.
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Toni Elias, San Carlo Honda Gresini. Photo by Team Gresini.
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"It's not a spectacular result but we've end the season with two top
fives and we know we have a direction to work in over the winter." said
Hayden. "It hasn't been a great season for me in terms of results but
the improvements we have made since the start are huge and I'm excited
about the future."
Elias commented, "I was calm going into the race because I know I
usually start well and after that it was a case of pushing as hard as
I could to stay with the front guys, who were on another planet again
here. I managed to stick it out with Nicky and Colin for the whole race
although they were slightly faster than me and it was an effort to stay
with them. In the end I knew seventh place in the championship was ours
if I could finish sixth so I gritted my teeth to the end. There are so
many people I want to thank. My MotoGP adventure is over for now but I
hope to be back as soon as possible after taking on the new challenge
that awaits me, starting tomorrow, in Moto2." [Moto2 is the now former
250cc class]
Both Elias and Ducati's Hayden did not have the pace to stop Colin
Edwards from sailing off in fourth. The American rider for the Yamaha
Tech 3 team will have a new teammate next year, another of the Americans
to make a name for himself in the top FIM series. Edwards' 2009
teammate, James Toseland leaves the series with his new ride in the FIM
World Superbike Championship.
"Things really fell my way today but over the course of the season I
feel like I really deserve fifth place in the championship. 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 got a great start and the bike was working
awesome but those three out front were untouchable. I don't know how
they do it, what they've got or what they eat for breakfast, but I
couldn't run their pace," Edwards said.
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Colin Edwards, Monster Yamaha Tech 3. Photo by Tech 3.
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"I'm happy for myself and for my guys at Monster Yamaha Tech 3. We are
a really close unit and they always give me 100 per cent, so hopefully
they can take a lot of satisfaction out of this result as well. I wish
James all the best for the future too and am convinced he can carry on
Yamaha's success in World Superbikes."
Ben Spies spent the 2009 season in the World Superbike Championship
series as a rookie. He notched the series crown and will start his
MotoGP debut season earlier than first expected. Yamaha elected to
move the American up one year early in MotoGP, starting in 2010. This
weekend, Spies was a wild card entry.
Spies learned the ropes quickly on the YZR-M1, placing ninth in
qualifying and ending up seventh in the race after falling back to
12th which he explained: "It was a good day. We got a good start which
something I didn't think was going to happen. For the first six or seven
laps I wasn't really on it, I wasn't used to the way the tires come
in so I was halfway taking it easy and halfway getting pushed around
because I didn't want to do anything silly."
"Once we got into a rhythm I got to follow some people and it was ok,
then I slowly started to pass some people and got my eyes set on the
guys in front," Spies said. Once I got passed Dovizioso I could see
Nicky Hayden and Tony Elias up ahead. I knew I wasn't going to catch
them but I tried to keep my pace going and was able to keep it steady.
It's been a dream first weekend for us, to get seventh on a track I
don't particularly favour is pretty cool, the feeling is the same as
winning a superbike race.
"I'm happy we've kept the bike off the ground and made solid progress
all weekend which was our number one goal. I just want to thank Yamaha
for giving me this opportunity, and all the sponsors that helped put
this together for the weekend, especially Sterilgarda, BM Group, Fimer,
Parts Europe and everybody else who made it possible to get this thing
going, I think we did a good job for them."
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Ben Spies, Yamaha Factory Racing. Photo by Bridgestone Corporation.
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The 2009 season is now in the books and while Rossi and Lorenzo had
things locked up before the final checkered flag fell, it was still a
contest for the riders for final points.
Pedrosa was very happy to take third in the standings and truly Stoner's
closing out the year in fourth can only be listed as amazing. Edwards
ended besting Repsol Honda's Andrea Dovizioso for fifth by one point!
Elias who will not be in the top-level MotoGP series next year placed
seventh, four points in front of his teammate Alex De Angelis.
Rizla Suzuki's Loris Capirossi gave the small team a big uplift during
the year, the Italian ended ninth in the points, just one point out of
eighth. Marco Melandri did the same for the Hayate Racing Team, placing
the Kawasaki 10th in the final standings.
Now the teams and their 2010 riders will kick-start the season early
with Winter testing preparing for the championship fight even before the
new season officially starts. Yamaha is strong but are they truly the
strongest team or perhaps a bit of luck did come their way this year.
Stoner proved to the world that it is possible to come back and still be
in a winner. Pedrosa gave Honda again a top finish during the season and
in the final outcome, will they be able to match Yamaha for consistency
and power next year?
