The Valencia circuit, named after double world champion Ricardo Tormo, is relatively compact and has a number of quite sharp corners. Another man from Spain would arrive with the best record from past Grands Prix, with Dani Pedrosa five times a winner at the track. Six other runners had been Valencia winners, but none more than twice. The list included two more home favourites, Lorenzo and Héctor Barberá.

Lorenzo was celebrating a golden season with a special crash helmet in gold and crystal, apparently worth €12,000. He qualified in second position, completing a remarkable run - only three times this year has he been worse than second, and he has always been better than fifth. But in pole position for the fourth time this year was Casey Stoner, in his last event on the works Marlboro Ducati. It was the 30th pole for the marque in their eight years of MotoGP competition. Casey has earned 21 of those poles.

Not counting the consistently disappointing 2010 machinery from Suzuki, all the factory bikes would start from the first three rows of the grid, but with customer runners also in the mix. It was no surprise that the Tech 3 Yamaha men were up there, but leading the way on this occasion was San Carlo Gresini Honda rider Marco Simoncelli, in third place for his best start so far in MotoGP. He headed the HRC-spec. bikes, both two rows behind him.

Valentino Rossi headed row two for Fiat Yamaha, and in fifth was Nicky Hayden for Marlboro Ducati. The two men will be reunited as team-mates next year as Rossi switches camps. He’d had a few podium results with Yamaha at Valencia, including a win in 2004, but in the two years when he lost out on the title the race here was disastrous for him. In 2006 he crashed and then only managed 13th place, which lost him the title to Hayden. And in 2007 various problems contributed as he failed to finish and lost out on second overall, again at the last gasp.

Starting in sixth and seventh were Ben Spies and Colin Edwards (both Tech 3), in front of the Repsol Hondas of Pedrosa (eighth) and Andrea Dovizioso (ninth). Spies had an ankle injury after his non-starting incident in Portugal. Two more Honda RCV bikes followed, Marco Melandri (Gresini) ahead of Randy de Puniet (LCR). 28-year-old Melandri would be making his 207th and final Grand Prix start, having been a youthful 125cc winner aged 15 back in 1998, adding 21 more wins and the 250cc title in 2002. He moves to a Yamaha ride in World Superbikes.

In P12 was Pramac Ducati rider Aleix Espargaró, who steps down to the Moto2 class next year. Then it was Barberá (Páginas Amarillas Aspar Ducati), Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki) and Hiroshi Aoyama (Interwetten Honda). Carlos Checa was in P16 for Pramac, then it was Álvaro Bautistá (Rizla Suzuki), these two helping to provide a total of six Spaniards on the grid.

Conditions were somewhat cool for the race, which kicked off with Stoner retaining his lead, from Lorenzo, Hayden and Simoncelli into the left-handed turn one. Somehow, Pedrosa threaded his way through by cutting across from right to left on the next short straight, and he braked on the inside for the tight left turn two (known as Doohan Corner), emerging in second position. Hayden was quick to re-pass his former Honda team-mate, fending off Dani’s attempt to fight back.

Lorenzo was shuffled back in the initial action, and therefore Stoner led Hayden, Pedrosa, Simoncelli, Lorenzo, Dovizioso and Spies, with Rossi back to eighth, ahead of Melandri. If Pedrosa took a top ten finish he would stay ahead of Rossi as runner-up in the championship, even if the Italian won the race. Valentino had a lot to do at this stage if his ambition was to relegate Dani.

Rossi would soon pass Spies for seventh, but ahead there was some dramatic action involving Lorenzo and Simoncelli. Turn one follows the longest straight at Valencia, and provides probably the best place to overtake. Jorge did just that to move into fourth, but had to get into some swap-and-swap hustling as Marco fought his cause. The Honda man was still in front when they came through the left curve and crest at turn thirteen, leading to the tight left at fourteen, preceding the main straight. Lorenzo tried to get inside at T14 when there wasn’t really room. The bikes touched, and the Spaniard had to save an out of control mount. Somehow he did, but a couple of his pursuers got past.

Ducati were one and two, but second man Hayden managed to crash out when a rear wheel slide turned into a lowside get-off at turn one. This left Stoner heading Pedrosa and Simoncelli, with Rossi about to pass Dovizioso for fourth. Stoner was getting away out front, but Rossi set a new fastest lap in his pursuit of the podium men. Lorenzo then moved up to fifth with a move on Dovizioso at turn one. Following them were Spies, Barberá, Melandri and Espargaró, then Edwards, de Puniet, Checa, Bautistá, Capirossi and Aoyama.

Stoner was no longer running away as Pedrosa went fastest and closed down his advantage, although the Australian would respond when the Honda got close. Rossi was up to third when he passed Simoncelli on the inside at turn one, and held it as the 23-year-old tried to get it back at turn two. This set up a return match between Simoncelli and Lorenzo, and this went much better for the Yamaha man this time, as he used the slipstream effect to pass into turn one.

With Pedrosa still not fully fit, Stoner began to edge away again and there was pressure from Rossi behind. After a left kink at turn nine, there is a looping right at turns ten and eleven, and this is where Valentino got past Dani by going to the inside. It also gave Lorenzo enough of a gap to also make it through, and soon enough the Repsol rider would start to drop away from the trio ahead. Behind, Dovizioso had closed the gap to Simoncelli and was putting the rookie under attack. But a loss of power ended Capirossi’s three-year Suzuki adventure in the Valencia pits.

The first three were together, but with Lorenzo now up to second after a turn one pass on Rossi. It seemed possible that Stoner had some grip issues, and Lorenzo was pushing the former champion. Jorge had a ‘moment’ at one point, but in time it was Rossi who began to drop back from the pair of younger riders. Meanwhile, it seemed that Pedrosa’s shoulder problems might have been contributing to the fact that he found Simoncelli, Dovizioso and Spies looming.

The race was into its latter stages when there was a change at the front. There was a wobble for Stoner exiting turn one, and Lorenzo passed on the inside for turn two. After that he pulled away and it was win number nine of his season. It was the eleventh win for Yamaha, matching their previous best tally, from 2005. Rossi was in third at the flag, and well clear of those behind. The two Fiat men therefore took Yamaha’s premier class podium tally up to 550.

There had been positions to be decided in the late part of the race for those contesting fourth. Dovizioso seemed to have a power advantage as he went to the left of Simoncelli along the main straight and overtook, and his next victim was team-mate Pedrosa. But soon the order of these three Honda men was back how it had been. Then Marco went by Dani on the inside at turn eleven, and he would soon be passed by Dovizioso and Spies too. Pedrosa then dropped off the back of this trio.

Dovizioso passed Simoncelli on the inside at turn one, just about holding the place as his rival tried to fight back. Marco had another go at turn ten, but Andrea went straight back through, and on the exit this let Spies pass the Gresini team rider. Then it was Ben’s turn to head this battle, with a move on the inside for turn fourteen. Dovizioso just got back past on the inside at turn one, but Spies claimed fourth again at turn two. That settled the order as they became more separated in the final laps.

Behind seventh man Pedrosa, Barberá maintained eighth position to match his previous best result, in the French race. Bautistá made his way through to claim ninth, from de Puniet, Espargaró and Edwards. Melandri, who had been fifth in Italy, and had run ninth here, ended up his GP career in a disappointing P13, heading Aoyama and Checa, who therefore added a single point in his brief GP comeback.

Lorenzo’s celebration was to plant a Spanish flag in one of the gravel traps, and he filled in the digits on the t-shirts of his crew, showing his record-breaking final score of 383 points - ten more than Rossi had earned in 2008. The Italian and his crew provided more of a spectacle after the final Yamaha outing, with their yellow t-shirts as he said ‘Bye Bye Baby’ to his YZR-M1. It was probably fitting that he ended his Yamaha stint with a total of 46 wins scored. There had been 84 podium results for this rider-team combination.

Jorge Lorenzo is not the most successful Spanish rider, of course. There have been eleven Grand Prix world champions from that country. Lorenzo took his third title this year, but both Angel Nieto and Jorge Martínez took more titles than that, Nieto by some margin. But their successes were in the smaller capacity classes, and Lorenzo is only the second Spaniard to claim the premier class crown, following on from Álex Crivillé, the 500cc winner in 1999. He did it in some style, which is also indicated by the figures.

MotoGP racing has seen a few recent examples of riders with a 100% record of points-scoring finishes: Valentino Rossi in 2003, Colin Edwards in 2005 and Chris Vermeulen in 2009. But there weren’t quite as many races in those years - only three riders have a 100% record after a full 18-race series: Casey Stoner in 2007, Rossi in 2008 and Jorge Lorenzo this year. In Lorenzo’s case, he is the only man to finish in the top four for every one of 18 races, although Rossi’s sixteen results in 2003 were all top three. It will be interesting to see how Jorge’s rivals fight back in 2011, as they will no doubt aim to deny him such an enviable record in his title defence year.

2010 Final standings:
1 Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) 383
2 Dani Pedrosa (Honda) 245
3 Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 233
4 Casey Stoner (Ducati) 225
5 Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) 206
6 Ben Spies (Yamaha) 176
7 Nicky Hayden (Ducati) 163
8 Marco Simoncelli (Honda) 125
9 Randy de Puniet (Honda) 116
10 Marco Melandri (Honda) 103
= Colin Edwards (Yamaha) 103
12 Héctor Barberá (Ducati) 90; 13 Álvaro Bautistá (Suzuki) 85; 14 Aleix Espargaró (Ducati) 65; 15 Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda) 53; 16 Loris Capirossi (Suzuki) 44; 17 Mika Kallio (Ducati) 43; 18 Alex de Angelis (Honda) 11; 19 Roger Lee Hayden (Honda) 5; 20 Kousuke Akiyoshi (Honda) 4; 21 Wataru Yoshikawa (Yamaha) & Carlos Checa (Ducati) 1

1 Yamaha 404; 2 Honda 342; 3 Ducati 286; 4 Suzuki 108

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