Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo capped his title winning 2010 MotoGP season by taking his ninth win in front of his home fans in Valencia, Spain on Sunday, Nov. 7. As well, teammate Valentino Rossi finished third in his 117^th and final appearance for Yamaha, bringing to a close a wonderful seven-year partnership with the extraordinary YZR-M1. Meanwhile the Yamaha Tech 3 duo of Ben Spies and Colin Edwards completed the season by finishing fourth and 12^th, respectively. While Lorenzo took the MotoGP championship, Rossi finished the season third in points, with Spies sixth in his rookie season and Edwards in 11^th. 

Both Lorenzo and Rossi dropped places at the start of the 30-lap event, with Jorge slipping from second to fifth, and Valentino going from fourth to ninth. Then Lorenzo almost crashed looking for a way past Marco Simoncelli, and although he made a spectacular save, the new world champ dropped several more places as Rossi advanced to fourth. Lorenzo soon began regaining positions though, and after 10 laps the order was Casey Stoner, Rossi and Lorenzo. But Lorenzo was unstoppable, and the cool-headed 23-year-old eventually passed Rossi and then stormed ahead of Stoner with seven laps remaining. The win brought Lorenzo’s points tally to 383, a new MotoGP season record. 

“Winning here in front of my home crowd at this special track is one of the happiest moments of my life,” Lorenzo said afterwards. “We are proud to have got the record for the most number of points with 383 – I used to be known as a crazy rider who crashed too much so to demonstrate consistency in this way makes me proud. Thanks to Yamaha and everyone involved for a fantastic season – now we have time to celebrate tonight before we start working for 2011 on Tuesday. Finally I want to say goodbye and good luck to Valentino – I am looking forward to racing him next year!” 

Rossi added, “Honestly I’m happy with this final result with Yamaha, because we had a difficult weekend here. Arriving on the podium was my way to say ‘thank you’ to my bike, to Yamaha and to all the people who have worked with me in these seven seasons. It’s been a great experience and I have enjoyed it so much. Forty-six is a great number of wins – of course I wanted more but I think I can be happy with what I have done here. It’s been a wonderful seven years, great fun with a special atmosphere, many fantastic victories and four world championships. Thank you to everyone – we have wonderful memories.” 

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