he final MotoGP race of the
2005 season was a probable
preview of the 2006 season.
Two of the young lions,
Marco Melandri and Nicky
Hayden, fought each other for 30 laps on
the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia,
with the margin of victory less than a
tenth of a second.
Repsol Honda's Hayden missed out on
winning his second grand prix of the year
by .097 seconds. That was the interval to
Melandri, the MoviStar Honda MotoGP
rider who Hayden stalked the entire race,
only to come up just short before a sunstruck crowd of 124,520 in the Valencia
Grand Prix, the final curtain of the 2006
MotoGP season.
"It'd be nice to get one more win in
the books, another check in the 'W' column," Hayden said. Melandri made sure it
wasn't to be.
The Italian took the lead at the start.
Hayden went with him, with Valentino
Rossi trying to atone for a disastrous qualifying effort - he'd started 15th on the grid.
By the sixth lap, Rossi was into third,
but the leaders were well ahead and destined to stay there.
Hayden had early-race jitters - he'd
crashed here the previous two years - so
T
