MotoGP 2009 Round 17 - Valencia GP

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Moto GP 2009 Round 17 - Valencia

Honda enjoyed a great 2009 season finale at Valencia with Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) winning the MotoGP race in dominant style and Hiroshi Aoyama (Scot Honda) securing the last-ever 250 World Championship. It was a fitting climax to the season that marked Honda’s 50th anniversary of Grand Prix racing.

Pedrosa was in great form, leading from start to finish, in cool, windy conditions. Starting from the front row of the grid the local hero took just three laps to open a 2.1 second gap over his pursuers, using the speed of his RC212V to maximum advantage (Pedrosa was fastest through the start/finish speed trap at 316.6km/h). At one stage he was 4.4 seconds in front of closest challenger Valentino Rossi (Yamaha), finally crossing the line 2.6 seconds ahead of the Italian who just bettered team-mate Jorge Lorenzo.

Pedrosa’s second victory and 11th podium of the year gave him third in the 2009 MotoGP World Championship. The only man who could have beaten him to third overall was Casey Stoner (Ducati), but the Australian didn’t even make the start after sliding off during the warm-up lap. Cool conditions made the track quite treacherous throughout the weekend.

Britains James Toseland finished in 12th place in his last MotoGP race before heading back to World Superbikes. In the 125cc race Britains Bradley Smith had an excellent race finishing the season on a high in 2nd place.

MotoGP race winner Danny Pedrosa said: “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.”

Full results:

MotoGP

  1. Dani PEDROSA (Repsol Honda Team)
  2. Valentino ROSSI (Fiat Yamaha Team)
  3. Jorge LORENZO (Fiat Yamaha Team)
  4. Colin EDWARDS (Monster Yamaha Tech 3)
  5. Nicky HAYDEN (Ducati Marlboro Team)
  6. Toni ELIAS (San Carlo Honda Gresini)
  7. Ben SPIES (Sterilgarda Yamaha Team)
  8. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (Repsol Honda Team)
  9. Mika KALLIO (Pramac Racing)
  10. Alex DE ANGELIS (San Carlo Honda Gresini)
  11. Randy DE PUNIET (LCR Honda MotoGP)
  12. James TOSELAND (Monster Yamaha Tech 3)
  13. Aleix ESPARGARO (Pramac Racing)
  14. Loris CAPIROSSI (Rizla Suzuki MotoGP)
  15. Chris VERMEULEN (Rizla Suzuki MotoGP)

250cc

  1. Hector BARBERA (Pepe World Team)
  2. Alvaro BAUTISTA (Mapfre Aspar Team)
  3. Raffaele DE ROSA (Scot Racing Team 250cc)
  4. Thomas LUTHI (Emmi - Caffe Latte)
  5. Ratthapark WILAIROT (Thai Honda PTT SAG)
  6. Karel ABRAHAM (Cardion AB Motoracing)
  7. Hiroshi AOYAMA (Scot Racing Team 250cc)
  8. Alex BALDOLINI (WTR San Marino Team)
  9. Roberto LOCATELLI (Metis Gilera)
  10. Shoya TOMIZAWA (CIP Moto - GP250)
  11. Shuhei AOYAMA (Racing Team Germany)
  12. Lukas PESEK (Auto Kelly - CP)
  13. Balazs NEMETH (Balatonring Team)
  14. Mike DI MEGLIO (Mapfre Aspar Team 250cc)
  15. Valentin DEBISE (CIP Moto - GP250)

125cc

  1. Julian SIMON (Bancaja Aspar Team 125cc)
  2. Bradley SMITH (Bancaja Aspar Team 125cc)
  3. Pol ESPARGARO (Derbi Racing Team)
  4. Simone CORSI (Fontana Racing)
  5. Marcel SCHROTTER (Toni - Mang Team)
  6. Joan OLIVE (Derbi Racing Team)
  7. Efren VAZQUEZ (Derbi Racing Team)
  8. Sandro CORTESE (Ajo Interwetten)
  9. Randy KRUMMENACHE (Degraaf Grand Prix)
  10. Nicolas TEROL (Jack & Jones Team)
  11. Dominique AEGERTER (Ajo Interwetten)
  12. Lorenzo ZANETTI (Ongetta Team I.S.P.A.)
  13. Luis SALOM (Jack & Jones Team)
  14. Takaaki NAKAGAMI (Ongetta Team I.S.P.A.)
  15. Johann ZARCO (WTR San Marino Team)

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