The final round of the 2011 MotoGP championship series was held at the Valencia circuit earlier today, and recently crowned 2011 champ Casey Stoner (Honda) recorded his tenth win of the year. Stoner came from behind to nip Ben Spies (Yamaha) by a small fraction of a second at the line. Spies finished ahead of third place Andrea Dovizioso (Honda). The teams will now focus on testing their 1000 cc bikes for next year, including a test scheduled for Tuesday.
A crash on the first lap took Ducati factory riders Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden out of the race. Both of them were unhurt.
For additional details, results and points, visit the official MotoGP site.
This race belonged to Spies, he is the one that did a great job coming from several places behind to lead the race. Unfortunate that the Hondas have so much power!!
Go Spies!!
Or that Stoner is such a superb rider?
DOH!!! I thought Ben was going to steal it, close. Good race, Bring on the 1000’s! Bring on next season.
Damn that Honda power! Soooo close for Spies to get second win. But he rode well. He’ll be a contender for the championship next year on the 1000. Congratulations to Stoner, he earned it this year and deserves to be called champion. The article above says no one hurt in Bautista’s screw up when he took out Rossi, Hayden and himself. That’s not correct. Hayden broke his wrist and is not participating in testing/development that’s going on right now in Valencia, Spain.
Also, I wanted to give an “Atta Boy” to AMA/DMG Superbike Champion Josh Hayes. Everything was new to him (bike, brakes, tires and track) and he placed 7th. I know, I know, Bautista’s brain fart helped but still, GREAT JOB Josh.
R.I.P. Super Sic. You are missed.
I’ll just echo what John and Philip said, incredible race. Couldn’t believe that Spies took Dovi and Pedrosa, then closed the 10 second gap that Stoner had, putting a couple of seconds on him, only to be beaten by 1/2 a motorcycle length. Wonder if Honda is rethinking their decision to let Dovi go?
That was a fantastic race! Too bad there was so much carnage at turn one, and judging by the number of comments about the race so far, seems like possibly alot of fans have punched their time cards already after the loss of Marco??
That was a decent race, first between Pedrosa and Dovizioso, and then with Spies working his way forward and taking the lead.
Too bad he lost it by 15 thousandths of a second.