Dani Pedrosa has brought the 2009 season to an end with a resounding victory at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit, and he has done so on a day that has been particularly good for Spanish motorbike racing. Three Spanish riders have won at the Valencia Grand Prix today; Julián Simón in 125cc, Héctor Barberá in 250cc and finally, Dani Pedrosa in MotoGP. Pedrosa thereby increases his wins at the Valencian circuit to five: one in 125cc (2002), two in 250cc (2004 and 2005) and two in MotoGP (2007 and 2009). This was Pedrosa’s second win of the season, after claiming victory in Laguna Seca in July. With this result, Pedrosa has taken third place in the overall standings of the 2009 MotoGP World Championship.
The race started with a big surprise, involving Casey Stoner in the warm-up lap. The Australian fell before the riders had lined up, leaving his bike unusable, which prevented him from taking pole position on the starting grid. With the road open, Dani Pedrosa did what he knows best. Once again, he got off to an impeccable start, maintaining first place in the first turn and immediately started opening a gap with his rivals.
Just behind him was a surprising Toni Elías -followed by Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo-, although Pedrosa did not leave any room for doubt and immediately opened a gap, which resulted definitive. He clocked up the fastest lap in the fourth lap, which was matched by Rossi a lap later -once he had managed to get past Elías and Lorenzo, who had overtaken him-, but the Repsol rider extended his advantage, thanks to a blinding pace, with fastest lap included in the tenth lap.
Lap by lap, his advantage grew to over four seconds, when Pedrosa started to mange his advantage. The die was cast and all he had to do was concentrate, manage his advantage and finish the 30 laps of the race without making a mistake. After riding the 120 kilometres of the race, Dani Pedrosa became the undisputed winner, ending the 2009 season with the best possible result. Success that the Repsol rider wanted to share with his team and everyone who has supported him throughout this difficult season.
While Dani Pedrosa clocked up the fastest lap of the race and headed towards his second win of the season, his Repsol Honda Team team mate, Italian Andrea Dovizioso, had a bad start and completed his first lap in fourteenth place. Dovizioso then started an outstanding comeback in which he passed riders until he crossed the finish line eighth. Although this was not the result the Italian hoped for, his race was not at all uneventful, as he took part in a beautiful battle with Spies, Kallio and De Angelis.
Tomorrow afternoon, the 2010 pre-season starts for the MotoGP riders, who will take out their prototypes for next year for the first time at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit. The test sessions will be held on Monday afternoon, all day Tuesday and Wednesday morning. After these few days, the riders will not get back on their bikes until February 2010 at the Sepang Circuit in Malaysia.
Dani Pedrosa, 1st, 46’47.553 sec. >> Audio
“It’s really great to finish off the season with a win, especially here in front of my home fans. 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.”
Andrea Dovizioso, 8th at 38.364 sec. >> Audio
“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. I had a bad start and lost a lot of time overtaking riders with a slower pace than mine, and this caused me to lose contact with Edwards and Elias. If I had started from further up the grid, I had the rhythm and pace to fight with them, but starting from the fourth row everything is more difficult. In the end Spies overtook me and I couldn’t re-pass him, and with the eight position at the finish I lost my fifth position in the championship. I don’t want to make any excuse for this result. I’m just looking forward to the future. We have worked a lot this season and, although it hasn’t been easy, we have learned a lot. I’d like to thank my team for their hard work, and from tomorrow the 2010 season starts. Honda has brought a new chassis and I’m really looking forward to testing it.”
