Pirro wins to honour Simoncelli as champion Stoner marks century with dramatic victory

Casey Stoner produced a dramatic finish to his title-winning campaign by snatching an extraordinary last-gasp victory from under the nose of Ben Spies at MotoGP’s season finale in Valencia.

Yamaha rider Spies looked poised for his second win of the year after passing Stoner for the lead in difficult rainy conditions late on, but lost time coming out of the final turn to allow the Australian through for the win by just 0.015 seconds.

The triumph was Stoner’s 10th of the season, and 33rd of his career in his 100th MotoGP start, and provided a much-needed boost to the sport following the tragic death of Marco Simoncelli at the last round in Malaysia.

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Third place went to Stoner’s Repsol Honda team-mate Andrea Dovizioso – securing the Italian third place in the championship – while Britain’s Cal Crutchlow enjoyed his best result of the year for Tech 3 Yamaha as he came home in fourth.

Despite being denied victory late on, Spies was sanguine at the chequered flag.

“I’m happy enough with it,” said the American.

“We made a huge charge at the end. Once we got ahead it was hard to understand how slick the track was because nobody was in front of us.”

The race was the first since the death of Simoncelli in a crash in Malaysia a fortnight ago, and was marked by riders from the MotoGP, Moto2 and 125cc categories uniting to perform a lap of honour to remember the late Italian.

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And in a further tribute, Italian Michele Pirro, of Simoncelli’s Gresini team, won yesterday’s Moto2 race. There was no celebration at the flag as team boss Fausto Gresini wept in the pitlane.

After the distressing scenes at Sepang the last thing the sport needed were any further crashes yesterday – but that is exactly what happened into the first turn of the MotoGP race as Alvaro Bautista lost control under braking.

He unstuck after tagging the rear wheel of Dovizioso as the pack closed up. Bautista then slewed into Ducati pair Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden, and the Pramac Ducati of Randy de Puniet, eliminating all four on the spot. Mercifully all the riders were uninjured in the crash.

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