MotoGP: Exciting Season Finale in Valencia

The 2011 MotoGP season was nothing short of spectacular in a cloudy Valencia today, with Casey Stoner narrowly claiming his 10th victory of the season catching Ben Spies at the wire.

While the race had been declared wet, most riders swapped to slick tires immediately prior to the start. Slippery conditions made traction difficult and the first casualties came in turn one off the race start. Rizla Suzuki's Alvaro Bautista started a chain reaction when he fell down, taking out Pramac Ducati rider Randy de Puniet, who proceeded to take Factory Ducati teammates Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden with him. While all riders were forced to retire, the race continued and recently crowned World Champion Casey Stoner got away with the lead.

A battle for second quickly ensued between Stoner's team mates, Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso, who were also battling for third place in the championship. Factory Yamaha's Ben Spies, showed no signs of relent and was right on the wheels of the two Repsol Hondas.

With less than ten laps remaining, Spies made a pass on Dani Pedrosa to move into third. The Factory Yamaha rider was on the move and within a few laps quickly overtook Andrea Dovizioso for second place. While Stoner was still a few seconds ahead, Spies was not about to let up, and started reigning in the World Champion. According to Stoner "I wasn't really willing to push (in the rain) and everybody else was willing to take more risk or felt more comfortable in those conditions."

Spies was able to make a move on Stoner with less than 4 laps remaining when Stoner made a mistake and his motorcycle went into neutral. Stoner made quick work to catch up but with only two laps left the victory looked to belong to Spies. With the checkered flag at the ready, Spies brought his Yamaha onto the front straight for the final time, yet Stoner managed to get a better drive out of the corner and make the pass at the wire to reclaim the lead. Andrea Dovizioso would round out the podium in third.

According to Spies, he decided to sit on the back of Pedrosa and Dovizioso and wait to see what happens. An opportunity came up and he made some passes, and all of sudden rain came, yet he was feeling comfortable. He mentioned that the last few laps were tough because there was nobody in front of him and there was no benchmark as to how slick the conditions were. Spies exlplained, "At that point I was like okay, let's try to win the race but we gotta try to keep this thing on the podium." After the last month of bad luck he wasn't willing to throw it all away again. Overall Spies was happy to end the season on a high note.

Cal Crutchlow made the chase for the Rookie of the Year Award, by making a late pass on Dani Pedrosa to take home an astounding 4th place finish, moving Pedrosa back to 5th. Yamaha Factory test rider rode home to a 6th place finish after an early battle with wild card rider Josh Hayes. In an exceptional effort for his first ever MotoGP race, American Superbike Champion Josh Hayes guided the Tech3 Yamaha to a 7th place position; Hayes also topped the charts in morning warm-up by leading the session with a time of 1:40: 469.

Karel Abraham, Loris Capirossi, Toni Elias, Hector Barbera and Hiroshi Aoyama rounded out the remaining positions while De Puniet, Bautista, Rossi and Hayden did not finish the race.

Today's race marks the end of the 800cc MotoGP era, as the series moves to the more powerful 1000cc machines in 2012. It also marked the last race of Loris Caprirossi's 22 year-long career.