 1 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 The Circuit Ricardo Tormo is located in Cheste, Valencia, Spain. It was built in 1999, has a capacity of 120,000 spectators and seating for 60,000. |
 2 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 Because of the mild temperatures in winter, the Formula One teams often use it as a test site. Anthony Davidson holds the unofficial lap record, set in 2006 while testing a Honda, with a time of 1 m 08.540sec. This contrasts with a MotoGP record time of 1:31.002 set by Valentino Rossi in 2006. |
 3 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 Casey Stoner dominated all practice sessions and had pole over Pedrosa and Lorenzo. Rossi was 4th fastest qualifier. On the warmup lap, Casey high sided and put himself out of the race. |
 4 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 Pole position was empty and Pedrosa nearly got caught as he waited for Stoner to arrive. As usual, he got a blinding start and led into turn 1. |
 5 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 Tony Elias, another midget, moved quickly into second position. |
 6 16 GP Valencia 6, 7 y 8 de noviembre de 2009 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 As they go through turn 4 into turn 5, Elias is in second with Rossi third. Pedrosa is escaping. |
 7 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 Still on lap 1, Lorenzo takes third place away from Rossi. Valencia is the sort of circuit where all the excitement happens on the first lap. |
 8 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 On lap 2, Rossi comfortably follows Lorenzo who is in third. Colin Edwards is in 5th and is followed by Randy DePuniet and Nicky Hayden. |
 9 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 Elias, Lorenzo and Rossi hold these positions for lap 2 until Lorenzo passes Elias on lap 3. Elias usually starts fast but can't maintain the pace of the top riders. He finished 6th. This is not all that good considering his bike is supposed to be the third factory Honda on the grid. |
 10 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 Rossi follows Lorenzo for the first three laps. Rossi's usual strategy is to take things calmly for the first few laps until he understands what the bike will do. |
 11 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 During lap 4, Rossi passes Lorenzo to take second and maintains that position until the end of the race. Lorenzo holds onto third until the end. So for the next 26 laps, it is a boring procession at the front with Pedrosa holding onto first from the first corner. Colin Edwards moves into 4th on lap 7 and maintains that position to the end. |
 12 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 Meanwhile, back in the pack, Ben Spies is starting to make his move. He qualified 9th and dropped back to 11th as he took his time to get used to the Yamaha M1. Here he passes Loris Capirossi and Marco Melandri on lap10. |
 13 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 Ben Spies passes Dovizioso on lap 25 to take 7th postion and 1 point away from Dovi. |
 14 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 This 1 point was important because it gave Colin Edwards fifth positon in the championship. Here he celebrates with Guy Coulomb and the rest of his crew. He was the first non factory rider in the championship and beat two factory Hondas and two factory Suzuki's. He has a contract with Tech 3 for 2010. |
 15 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 Rossi, with the championship already won, didn't do anything extreme and was content with second in the race. More importantly, he beat Lorenzo again which is probably all he wanted to do. |
 16 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 The first three riders on the podium in this race were also the first three riders in the championship. Because Stoner crashed out, he did not take 25 points as expected so Dani Pedrosa took third in the championship. |
 17 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 The main story here was the minimum effort put in by Vermeulen and Toseland - they are both better riders than this and left MotoGP as duds. The gap back to 4th was an horrendous 32 seconds and, at the end, there was no racing anywhere. Good to see Nicky Hayden with a respectable result. |
 18 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 In addition to winning the Supersport and Superbike titles this weekend, Yamaha also easily won the Moto GP Constructor's and Team prizes. |
 19 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 The victorious Fiat Yamaha team poses to celebrate its multiple MotoGP victories: Manufacturer, Team and Rider. |
 20 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 The 250 Championship was decided at this round. Hiroshi Aoyama came 7th in the race and, with Marco Simoncelli crashing out of the lead, comfortably took the championship. The 125 championship was decided at Phillip Island and was won by Spaniard Julian Simon. |
 21 Round 17 - Valencia, Spain November 8, 2009 That night at the FIM awards, the three top riders in MotoGP collected their prizes. Dani Pedrosa was so surprised to be there, that he didn't have any formal clothes and had to attend in his jeans. THE END. |
