GP de Malasia. Races

Valentino Rossi, Dani Pedrosa and Repsol, 2003 World Champions
Victory of Repsol riders in the three classes, with Valentino Rossi in MotoGP, Toni Elias in the 250cc and Dani Pedrosa in the 125cc
Today has been a glorious day for motorcycling and for Repsol in Sepang. Two Repsol riders, Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa, have been crowned World Champions in the best possible way, i.e. winning their respective races with authority. In the 250cc, Toni Elias has shown once again that he is right now the strongest and fastest man in the class, with a new victory, his second consecutive win and fifth of the season, putting himself twenty-five points behind the leader of the standings, Manuel Poggiali, who finished second today.In the premier class, Valentino Rossi clinched today his third consecutive title – one in the 500cc and two in MotoGP- after a brilliant race. Rossi finished the first lap third, behind Gibernau and Biaggi. But after only a couple of laps he overtook Biaggi and later Gibernau, in order to take his seventh victory of the season and the Championship title. Gibernau finished second and Biaggi third. His teammate Nicky Hayden made another great race finishing fourth, after overtaking Checa, fifth and Capirossi, sixth, in the final laps. With regard to the World title for teams, the Repsol Honda Team is firmly leading the standings and is very close to being crowned World Champion, something that might probably happen in Australia. Second classified, 94 points behind is the Camel Pramac-Pons Honda team. In the 250cc, Toni Elias took another victory in another intelligent race of the Repsol rider. After the first lap, Fonsi Nieto took the lead of the race, escaping from the rest of the pack. Some laps later, Elias caught-up with him and passed him, thus escaping from the rest, while Fonsi spent the rest of the race fighting for second place with Poggiali. Although it seemed that Fonsi had everything under control with regard to Poggiali, he finally didn’t manage to win the San Marino rider, who took the chequered flag second. The fifty points at stake and the twenty-five points advantage of Poggiali, give Elias mathematical possibilities to clinch the world title. Sebastián Porto, who got a stop&go penalty for a jumped start according to the Race Direction, was set back to the last place of the pack but manage to regain places until a final meritorious eighth place. Joan Olivé was fourteenth and Héctor Faubel had to retire due to mechanical problems of his bike.  Dani Pedrosa took the start eager not to give any option to his rivals in the 125cc. From the first lap, the Repsol rider set a very fast pace, half a second faster that the rest of the pack, allowing to open a gap very quickly. From that moment on, the race for Pedrosa has been a direct way to the victory and to the World Championship. With Perugini having to retire due to mechanical problems, Pedrosa crossed the finish line first, celebrating his first world title, that makes him the second youngest rider of history to win a 125cc World Championship – behind Loris Capirossi-, and the youngest of Spain’s motorcycling history. Héctor Barberá and Pablo Nieto, improved during the race finishing eighth and ninth respectively.