MotoGP news
Pedrosa savours sweet taste of success
04 November 2007Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa rode to a fantastic victory in the Grand Prix of Valencia today and in doing so took a surprise second place in the riders World Championship. The 22-year-old from Barcelona converted pole position into the win and also set the fastest lap of the race to become the first rider to claim victory in all three Grand Prix classes at the Ricardo Tormo circuit. The 25 points Pedrosa earned today were enough to overturn the 24-point championship deficit he held to Valentino Rossi coming into the final race of the season and Pedrosa took second in the world standings by just one point. Rossi retired from today's race.
"I'm very happy with this result," said Pedrosa. "I really wanted to win this race very much and so actually achieving it feels fantastic. The race was very tough and I had to push at the maximum from start to finish. In the early laps I was struggling a little with grip from the front tyre but then in the second half of the race the grip was very good. The pace today was really fast and Casey was chasing hard so there was no moment to relax or back off. Towards the end of the race I was sliding in some of the left-handers but I was still able to push hard. I must say thanks to the team because they have worked very hard for me this weekend and all year and the bike was perfect today. Also I must thank Michelin too because the tyres were very good today. I didn't know until I arrived in parc ferme that I had second in the world championship and this was a nice surprise. I didn't expect this because there was only a very, very slim chance of taking second coming into this weekend. After quite a difficult season second place is better than third and gives the Repsol Honda Team some reward for sticking with it and never giving up this year. It will give us even more motivation for winter testing because we must now take another step forward so that we can arrive at the first race of 2008 with the best possible package. I think the crowd has enjoyed this weekend and I'm very proud to have given my fans a great result at my home circuit - it's a great feeling!"
Hayden commented, "Well, we knew all weekend that we were on the back foot and the race proved it. We made a lot of changes for warm-up this morning and the package felt a bit better, but still we didn't have the pace we needed for the race. I got a pretty good start but there were a few places on the lap where I was too weak and this made it quite a difficult race for me. I got past Melandri and held on to fourth for as long as I could but then to lose four places in the last five or six laps was tough to take. Still, the season's in the books and we'll start over with testing on Tuesday - it's been a tough year so now we'll go back to work. Thanks to the team for all their hard work this year - everybody at Honda, Michelin, my mechanics and everyone who's been behind me this year. We're going to keep working hard so we can do a lot better in 2008."
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