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Ducati riders aim to end season on high note

Ducati riders aim to end season on high note

29 October 2007

The Ducati Marlboro Team goes into the season-ending Valencia Grand Prix aiming to complete this momentous, historic season in the best way possible for the team. World Champion Casey Stoner has already won ten races and a total of 14 podiums so far this year while Loris Capirossi has scored a victory and three further podiums.

Looking ahead of the final round of the MotoGP championship Casey Stoner said: "Valencia will be a special weekend, the last race of a season that has been a dream come true. The championship may already be done but I don't need any more motivation than each race weekend. Every race is just as important as the others to me, so we go out there every time to try and win. The only difference now is that I'm a bit more relaxed, a bit more confident in my own abilities and what I can do with a bike.

"Valencia looks very slow and tight but it's surprisingly flowing, I've always really enjoyed it. I had my first GP win there [the 2003 125 GP], so I've had some really good results there, also some bad ones. I tested the Ducati for the first time at Valencia last November and we were pretty much quickest, so I think with the experience we've gained we can do a good job. There are a lot of second and third gear corners, like most tracks, but because most of the corners are right angles and banked so you can flow in there and use a lot of corner speed. That really helps with the gearbox because you only really use two gears, other than on the straights, so it's quite easy to get set up. It's just a matter of getting your braking and entry points right and getting on the gas at the right moment."

His team-mate Capirossi said about the upcoming race in Valencia: "Valencia will be a very big weekend for me and for everyone else involved in this project. It is my last race for this team after five incredible years. It will be quite an emotional weekend for me because we already have many great memories from the last five seasons, there have been some tough times, of course, but it is the good times that I want to remember: scoring Ducati's first MotoGP podium in our first race together at Suzuka in April 2003 and then Ducati's first win at Catalunya in June 2003, also my hat-trick of victories at Motegi over the past three years. Incredible memories! So now my job is to try and finish my time with Ducati in the best way."


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