Comunitat Valenciana GP. Races

Repsol riders say goodbye to the season from the podium
Rossi, culminates in Cheste a triumphant year winning the MotoGP race. Barberá and Elias second in 125cc and 250cc
The last MotoGP race of the season held in Valencia has been a triumphant race for Valentino Rossi. The Repsol rider clinched his ninth victory of the year. From the start, Loris Capirossi, Valentino Rossi, Nicky Hayden and Sete Gibernau took the four leading position places. The first casualty of the group was Nicky Hayden, who crashed in the fourth lap but managed to rejoin the race in the last position. However, his recovery took him all the way up to the final sixteenth place.Rossi took the lead of the GP from the second lap on and only gave up the leadership for a moment in lap eleven, where Sete Gibernau overtook him on the finish line. Gibernau has been Valentino’s only rival during the race and both riders opened a gap leaving Capirossi behind, who lapped alone in third position followed by Biaggi, Checa and Barros. In the last ten laps and in order to assure the victory, Rossi increased the pace notoriously, thus winning the last race of the season and setting a spectacular score of 357 points in the world championship.In the 250cc class, the whole attention was set on the fight for the victory between Randy De Puniet and Toni Elias, and on the fight for the championship title between Manuel Poggiali and Roberto Rolfo. With regard to the fight for the title, the race has been always favouring Poggiali, who spent the race on a comfortable third position, while he controlled his rival Rolfo through the indications on the boards. Rolfo, lapped in backward positions from the beginning of the race, much too far behind Poggiali to be able to pass him. Manuel Poggiali finished third, Rolfo seventh, and the championship title in the 250cc went to Poggiali. With regard to the race, De Puniet started from the first place setting a very fast pace from the beginning. Elias, very concentrated at all times, followed the Frenchman’s escapade who managed to take an advantage of almost two seconds over the Repsol rider. And while the leading riders were taking positions, Héctor Faubel and Joan Olivé were forced to retire from the race in the second lap due to mechanical problems. Fonsi Nieto could not follow the strong pace of both leading riders and lost position dropping back to a final fifth position, one place ahead of YPF rider Sebastián Porto. In the last laps of the race, Toni Elias and Randy De Puniet overtook each other several times and after offering a nice show to the more than 100,000 fans at the Valencian circuit, the Frenchman managed to take the victory only 72 thousands of a second ahead of Elias.The 125cc race was also an exciting race, resolved in the very last lap. Héctor Barberá took the leading role from the beginning, fighting with Casey Stoner and Marco Simoncelli in a group that progressively managed to open a gap. Pablo Nieto started from the back and began to make-up positions from the first lap on finally managing to finish seventh. Changes in the leadership were constant between Barberá and Stoner with Jenkner patiently waiting on third position. In the final lap and with the fans cheering him up, Barberá started an attack on Stoner, taking over the lead but loosing it due to an overbraking, finally finishing third of the GP and in the overall standings.