2009 Valencia MotoGP – race report

Stoner crashes out on the warm up lap, Spies rocks to seventh helping Edwards pip Dovizioso in the 2009 MotoGP Championship, Pedrosa untouchable during the race to end the year on a high for HRC.

The Gran Premio Gernerali de Communicat de Valencia was definitely not the fitting finale we were expecting for the final race of the 2009 season but it sure threw up a surprise.

In an incident that hasn’t been seen for many a year – especially in a Grand Prix – pole position man Casey Stoner crashed out of the event on the warm up lap!

It was a bizarre way for the Australian to end his troubled season as after dominating all practices – including Sunday morning’s warm-up – he almost certainly crashed out of the win.

From there, the rest was basically an anti-climax at the front although the opening few laps had a good battle. Tony Elias (Gresini Honda) got a flyer of a start to be second in front of FIAT Yamaha teammates Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, the Yamaha duo taking three laps to get past the Catalunyan. Lorenzo was the first to relegate his fellow countryman but soon after nearly crashed out allowing Rossi through to second, the trio holding station for the remainder of the race.

After the opening lap Pedrosa had a lead of 0.7 second and with the time it took for Rossi and Lorenzo to get past Elias, Pedrosa had an almost two second lead and around a place like Valencia that is just too big a gap to close down.

While the race at the front may have resembled a series of a high speed parade laps the battles through to 12th spot were enthralling.

Edwards took a few laps to get past Elias into fourth spot to have what he would consider a very boring race as he was lucky to see anyone taking the flag some 32 seconds behind Lorenzo and over two seconds in front of Hayden. The Kentucky Kid equalled his best result of the year with fifth spot and he did try to pressure Edwards but every time he took a few tenths out, Edwards wicked it up to maintain station.

The battle for sixth to 12th was the main focus of attention for the 94,000 spectators with Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) Randy De Puniet (LCR Honda) Elias, and San Carlo Gresini Honda teammate Alex De Angelis, Ben Spies (Yamaha) Marco Melandri (Hayate Kawasaki) and Mika Kallio (Pramac Ducati) all over each other in some great duels and very committed passing manoeuvres around the tight layout.

Adding a bit of spice to the rider’s difficulty was the very high winds and cool conditions which continued on the Sunday Melandri lasted till half race when he went backwards to the rear of the field with problems on the Kawasaki in the last race for the team before Kawasaki goes into hibernation.

So in the end Pedrosa took his second win in three years to be the dominant force of Valencia and overtook Stoner for third overall in the championship as Rossi gained his best result at the place since 2004 in second as Lorenzo tried a last ditch effort for second as Rossi’s lap time slowed.

Spies demonstrated that he will be a force next year as he battled through to seventh place while the man he replaces James Toseland fought valiantly but could only manage 12th.

Chris Vermeulen had a wretched weekend and in his final MotoGP race for the foreseeable future spent most of the race battling for last spot as yet again the Suzuki’s struggled for grip. One consolation for the sacked Aussie is that he scored points in every race this year.

While the season officially finished, there is not much rest as the teams remain at Valencia for three days of testing in preparation for 2010 with some riders will be a bit under the weather come Monday morning after a few celebratory drinks the previous night.

Stay tuned to dailybike.com for the latest updates.

Results next page!