Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/209493
FINAL ROUND/NOVEMBER 10, 2013 RICARDO TORMO CIRCUIT/VALENCIA, SPAIN MOTOGP P54 MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Briefly... Nicky Hayden rode to eighth in his final ride on the factory Ducati after five years on the Italian bike. the top Ducati. More than 10 seconds behind, his increasingly disgruntled teammate Andrea Dovizioso, who had a long battle with Ducati Bteam rider Andrea Iannone. He was ahead when his fellow Italian crashed out on lap 27. Another Ducati, wild card Michele Pirro, was a distant 10th after finally passing and escaping from a CRT-bike battle with Aleix Espargaro and Hector Barbera. By the end Espargaro had also gotten away from Barbera, cementing his clear position as top CRT rider with 11th, three seconds clear. Claudio Corti caught and passed Danilo Petrucci's Came Suter-BMW for 13th with three laps to go; second NGM rider Colin Edwards was another 11 seconds away for the final point; then Hiroshi Aoyama, Michael Laverty in 17th, a lap down but ahead of Luca Scassa himself barely a 10th ahead of Bryan Staring and Austrian wild card Martin Bauer. Lukas Pesek and Damian Cudlin added to the crash list; Yonny Hernandez and Randy de Puniet retired. And that was that for the year. Marquez won by four points, 334-330; while Pedrosa ended up on 300, the first time in history so many riders had amassed more than 300 points. Rossi claimed fourth on 237, then came Crutchlow with 188 and Bautista with 171 Bradl, Dovizioso, Hayden and Smith completed the top 10. CN MotoGP 1. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) 2. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) 3. Marc Marquez (Honda) 4. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 5. Alvaro Bautista (Honda) 6. Stefan Bradl (Honda) 7. Bradley Smith (Yamaha) 8. Nicky Hayden (Ducati) 9. Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) 10. Michele Pirro (Ducati) clusion - until Rossi fell early in the race. He scrambled back to finish 13th, but Hayden was third and took the crown by five points. Hayden retains happy memories of the emotional day. "It's always sweeter when you don't know until the last lap," he said. Rossi was more verbose. "I remember I was worried because this is not my favorite track. I was lucky in Portugal but also upset, because [Toni] Elias beat me by .002, and I thought then maybe the five points would be important. I was confident, but on Sunday morning something on the bike seemed to be broken. I was very slow and in the race I suffered. And then I made a mistake." Beleaguered former GP racer Sean Emmett was not forgotten at Valencia. The British rider is stuck in limbo in Dubai, after a tragedy when his new wife died after falling from a hotel balcony in February. Emmett has neither been charged with anything nor been allowed to leave. At Valencia a fan's trackside banner read: "Free Sean Emmett." Nicky Hayden will go back under the knife to repair his persistent right wrist problem that has troubled him for much of the year. The original injury was at the final race at Valencia two years ago, when he was brought down at the first corner – missing the next day's testing. The fracture was repaired with a screw fixing, but during this season (and following a couple more crashes) he has been plagued with pain and inflammation. "I guess they'll take the screw out, but I'm not exactly sure. It's been a while since I spoke to the doctors," he said.