Pedrosa dominates at Valencia

The Repsol Honda rider passed the Marlboro Ducati of new world champion Casey Stoner on lap 6 and won by over five seconds, while Rossi retired from the race after running into techical problems on his Fiat Yamaha while he was 14th.

That position would have been enough for the Italian to keep second place, while the retirement meant that Pedrosa edged ahead by one point.

The Spaniard started the race in pole position but dropped to third at the start, after being overtaken by Stoner and by Honda teammate Nicky Hayden. But during the first lap Pedrosa overtook the American and set off to catch the Australian.

Rossi, by contrast, started the race with a broken hand from 17th place after crashing heavily in qualifying yesterday. But after overtaking Tech 3's Makoto Tamada for 14th, he ran wide on lap 17th and lost two positions.

He kept running at a slow pace for three more laps and eventually retired, blaming an engine failure on his Yamaha M1.

John Hopkins, on his way to Kawasaki next year, waved goodbye to his Rizla Suzuki team with a performance that took him to the last step of the podium behind Pedrosa and Stoner.

Marco Melandri had a strong run to fourth place in his last appearance on Honda Gresini, before the rider moves to Marlboro Ducati for 2008.

The Italian will take the place of Loris Capirossi, who finished the race just behind in fifth.

Sixth place went to Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen, who classified ahead of Pramac d'Antin Alex Barros in his last race in MotoGP before retiring.

Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden ended his reign as world champion with an eighth place, with Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet ninth and Honda Gresini's Toni Elias tenth.

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Rider             Make           Time
 1.  Daniel Pedrosa    Honda     (M)  46:43.533   
 2.  Casey Stoner      Ducati    (B)  +   5.447
 3.  John Hopkins      Suzuki    (B)  +  20.404
 4.  Marco Melandri    Honda     (B)  +  24.827
 5.  Loris Capirossi   Ducati    (B)  +  25.804
 6.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki    (B)  +  25.862
 7.  Alex Barros       Ducati    (B)  +  29.470
 8.  Nicky Hayden      Honda     (M)  +  30.333
 9.  Randy de Puniet   Kawasaki  (B)  +  30.895
10.  Toni Elias        Honda     (B)  +  31.030
11.  Sylvain Guintoli  Yamaha    (D)  +  38.763
12.  Carlos Checa      Honda     (M)  +  42.506
13.  Colin Edwards     Yamaha    (M)  +  46.572
14.  Shinya Nakano     Honda     (M)  +  50.220
15.  Makoto Tamada     Yamaha    (D)  +  56.879
16.  Anthony West      Kawasaki  (B)  +1:15.369

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

     Rider             Make           On Lap
     Valentino Rossi   Yamaha    (M)    19
     Kurtis Roberts    KR        (M)    10

Fastest Lap: Daniel Pedrosa, 1:32.748 on lap 5