Valentino Rossi won his 7th MotoGP World Championship title at the Sepang Circuit in Malaysia to bring the title race of the 2009 season to a close. In a rain-drenched race, Rossi was only required to finish fourth to take the title away from teammate Jorge Lorenzo. Rossi did enough to end the race in third place despite a poor start, making sure that the title would stay with the defending champion who has now won 9 World Championship titles in all forms of motorcycle racing at the top-most level. >
The race began after a 35-minute rain delay and soon, Lorenzo was in trouble with his machine on the pace lap. Eventually, the Spaniard would have to start the race from the back of the grid but it hardly mattered. With Rossi falling to 10th spot after a poor start, Lorenzo zoomed past the Italian and looked set to go down with a fight.
Meanwhile, Casey Stoner kept extending his lead up at the front of the pack and soon, a 15-second gap from Andrea Dovizioso meant that there would be no doubts that the Australian would win another race since his comeback to the race track. Dovizioso, however, suffered a major setback on lap 14 as his bid for second was foiled by the rain. The Italian ended up sliding through the gravel. >
Rossi took the opportunity to get close to Dani Pedrosa but the Spaniard not only kept his distance, but extended his lead to ensure a second placed finish. Rossi, who had overtaken Lorenzo earlier, comfortably came in at third and received hearty congratulations from everyone, especially his teammate Lorenzo who finished the race in fourth.
An ecstatic Valentino Rossi addressed the media at the end of the race and stated, “Today’s race went a bit like how the season has gone, because we were so fast on the dry tyres, but right before the start of the race it started to rain so we had to go out on the track without any wet setting, >
“It’s a great achievement, and for me it’s the ninth championship, the seventh in MotoGP. I have to thank all the guys from Yamaha, who are great, and all the Fiat Yamaha team, from Jeremy (Burgess, chief mechanic) and all the mechanics to all the guys that work for me, and all my friends. All the people that helped me with this great achievement.” said The Doctor.
On his teammate and main title rival, Lorenzo, Rossi said, “Throughout the season I had great rivals, at the end especially Jorge my team-mate, who stayed very close to me, and we had some great fights. He’s a great rival so congratulations to him. But we are on the top and now we’ll relax and try to take in this achievement. The ninth championship is great – I’m so happy.”
On a weekend marked by Rossi’s title win, one can only think and wonder how things might have been had Casey Stoner not had a dip in form that required some time off. With a sensational return to the tracks since his break, a fully fit Stoner might have made different readings at the end of the championship race.
That said, it is now Valentino Rossi’s time, again if we may say so, and all we hope for is that the Italian has a large enough trophy cabinet.