Lorenzo announces 2009 title intentions

Jorge Lorenzo said he was relatively satisfied to finish eighth at Valencia after a difficult weekend on his home ground, but hopes to be a more consistent front-runner next season so he can challenge for the title.

The Valencia result confirmed Lorenzo's fourth place in the standings, making him the best of this year's newcomers.

"We're very, very happy with the rookie trophy, that was quite important for us," he told the BBC. "Next year we hope to fight for the big trophy."

He qualified seventh at Valencia and lost more ground at the start, before picking up pace later in the grand prix and recovering to eighth place.

"It's not the best finish of my career for sure," Lorenzo said. "We couldn't get a good pace or the right feeling all weekend.

"In the race it was getting better, and I'm happy because yesterday with the race tyre I was last (early in qualifying), and today eighth is not so bad. But it's not the best dream finish."

The double 250cc champion made a spectacular start to his first MotoGP campaign by taking three straight poles and then a maiden win at Estoril.

But Lorenzo fell off the pace in the summer after a series of violent accidents, and was also hampered by his Michelin tyres' inconsistent form.

"I learned many things, not only professionally, but personally too," he added to Italia1.

"It's been a very tough year, with many lessons, many crashes, and many internal problems, so this will make me a lot tougher in the head, and it will be good for the future."

Lorenzo admitted that he will need to be more consistent to mount a title challenge, but thinks he will benefit from next season's change to control tyres.

"Consistency is very important, but you have to be on the podium very regularly," said the Yamaha rider.

"If you are fourth or fifth it doesn't matter. You've got to be competitive, and for sure with the new regulations for the tyres it will be less confusing."

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Stoner salutes 'fantastic' finish

Casey Stoner was delighted to end the MotoGP season with a dominant win in the Valencia Grand Prix.

The 2007 world champion started from pole position and, after dropping behind Dani Pedrosa off the line, grabbed the lead back before the end of the first lap and pulled away to take a commanding win.

The result allowed him to cement his second place in the world championship, behind Valentino Rossi.

"We couldn't ask for much more than to finish the season like this," said Stoner.

"It's been a very difficult season for us, there's been a lot of ups, a lot of downs, but we were competitive here last year and in the warm-up everything felt good and we were ready for this. It's fantastic to finish like this."

Stoner said that he was worried late in the race that he may not hang on to win, after he began to struggle with the broken scaphoid bone in his wrist.

"I started running wide a little bit, and I was lucky that I had a bit of a buffer at the front, because then I had to start carrying more corner speed," he told the BBC.

"I couldn't brake at the same points - by the end of the race I was braking probably 50, 60 metres earlier going into the first turn than I was at the beginning. It was hard work to keep the lap times going, but we managed to do it."

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Gibernau admits a lot of work needed

Sete Gibernau admitted there is still a lot of work to be done following his debut with the Onde 2000 Ducati team in testing at the Valencia circuit.

The 35-year-old Spaniard will return to racing next season after leaving MotoGP at the end of 2006.

The Catalan has joined the new Onde 2000 squad, who made their MotoGP track debut yesterday in the first test following the end of the 2008 season.

Gibernau finished two seconds off the pace set by Casey Stoner.

"All the other riders are too fast for me to follow at the moment," Gibernau told the official MotoGP website. "They are all pretty sure of what they are doing, and I'm not yet.

"I'm still in need of learning what I have to do to get this bike fast; I'm not scared, but I've got a lot of respect for what everyone is doing in this championship."

The Spaniard, who had tested for Ducati earlier this year, admitted he was thrilled to be back in action following his decision to leave the sport.

"I was so excited to be back again," he said. "It's been three years since I last rode at Valencia, which is a big gap, but I enjoyed it a lot.

"We're good professionals and have put a very good group together, but we need to work at some tests to see how to work best with each other.

"I'm going to bring all my experience and know-how and try to get us up to speed in the fastest possible way."

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Rossi: Electronic aids make bikes boring

Eight-time world champion Valentino Rossi has blamed the increasing reliance on electronic aids in MotoGP as a key reason for the lack of wheel-to-wheel racing in 2008.

The Yamaha rider described the latest generation of 800cc bikes as 'boring' compared to their predecessors and that while other factors played their part, the ease at which they could be ridden on the limit was a contributing factor in creating processional races like the series finale at Valencia last weekend.

"For sure the 800cc is a more boring bike compared to the 990cc: there's too much electronics," he told Italian magazine Motosprint. "Now, if the electronics work well the bikes become almost perfect and the gaps increase, instead of reduce."

"The [Valencia] track is to blame too, because at no point you can take alternative lines, so you end up lining up one behind the other."

Asked to comment on the fact that it has been two years since there had been a last-lap lead change in a sport that prides itself on close racing, Rossi said: "That's a very bad thing. It's worrying.

"I don't think the single-tyre [rule] is the solution for this problem," he added. "I repeat: the electronics are very sophisticated, the technical evolution is incredible, and next year will be even worse.

"However, there have been some good races this year, so the track counts for a lot. But tracks like Valencia are not good for the show."

Rossi added that while he believed that reducing the reliance on electronic aids such as traction control would help to solve the problem, he didn't believe that it was likely to happen in the near future.

"These engines are designed considering the electronics, so the power output can afford to be aggressive because there are these systems helping out anyway," he said. "We'd need a smoother power output, to the detriment of power, but the engineers don't even want to hear that!

"So these days you can be aggressive, without being precise with the gas, because electronics helps you out anyway."

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Pedrosa blames injuries for slump

Dani Pedrosa believes his brace of broken hands were the main reason for his failure to challenge for the 2008 MotoGP title.

The Spaniard led the championship early on, but ultimately ended the year a distant third in the standings - 124 points adrift of champion Valentino Rossi - having won just twice.

He reckons he lost competitiveness primarily due to the hand injuries he suffered in pre-season testing at Sepang in January and in an accident when leading the sodden German Grand Prix in July.

"I broke my right hand at the beginning, then the left in the middle of the season, then hurt my knee in Australia, so I lost the rhythm many times this season - in the beginning and middle especially - because I was injured," said Pedrosa.

"I stopped my work on the bike and everybody else continued to get better and better every race."

The Repsol Honda rider is aiming to have a smoother season in 2009.

"I had to push very hard to come back strongly, and I hope next year we can stay away from those things," said Pedrosa.

"We hope things go well this time, we have no injuries pre-season, and we can work all the way to the first race."

Pedrosa ended the year with second places at Sepang and Valencia, results that he believes vindicated his decision to switch from Michelin to Bridgestone tyres prior to the Indianapolis race.

"We've come back from a bad period in the middle of the season," he said.

"We changed the tyres and I had many critics. But finally in the last three races we've come back on the pace. At Phillip Island I crashed because of cold tyres, but at the last two races we were at the top from practice."

Late slump hurts Quakes’ chances

Guintoli regrets following Rossi

Sylvain Guintoli blamed the time wasted behind Valentino Rossi as the reason for his disappointing 13th spot in Valencia qualifying today.

The Alice Ducati rider, who is taking part in his last MotoGP event before moving to British Superbikes next year, said he spent the first two laps of his last set of qualifying tyres behind the Italian's Fiat Yamaha, without realising the latter was on race tyres in the closing minutes of the session.

By the time he overtook Rossi, Guintoli was able to set his best lap of the session. The Frenchman reckons his tyres would have allowed him to qualify better had he not trailed Rossi for so long.

"When I was using my last set of soft tyres I was behind Valentino Rossi and I didn't know he was using race tyres," Guintoli said.

"I lost a couple of laps but then I overtook him and I have obtained my fastest lap time on the third lap with qualifying tyres. Probably, if I had used the tyres in my first lap out of the pit I would have conquered a much better result."

Guintoli suffered a crash in practice yesterday that left his knee bruised and his behind sore.

"It's okay like this for how it went yesterday," he concluded. "I still have a lot of pain in my left knee and tomorrow it will be a very long hard race."

Alice teammate Toni Elias, who will be moving back to the Honda Gresini team after this race, was relieved to have a decent session that saw him qualify in eleventh spot, after struggling to last place yesterday.

"It isn't a great result but I really gave all I had today to conquer the best position possible on the starting grid," said the Spaniard.

"I was in last position and now I am in the middle of the classification which is very important on this track where is very difficult to overtake. It's a pity because we have encountered some difficulties to find a good set up of the bike due to the weather conditions.

"We still have some problems, but this is the situation we are in and we will have to give it all tomorrow to finish in the best way possible the season."

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Ducati impressed with Hayden

Ducati's technical director Filippo Preziosi believes the team has made 'the right choice' by signing Nicky Hayden after the American completed a successful first test for the team at Valencia this week.

Hayden, who was fastest of all on the wet second day of the shortened test at the Spanish track, impressed the team with his bravery and his swift integration with the engineers.

"He certainly is very brave," Preziosi told Italian newspaper Gazetta dello Sport. "With the telemetry you can see that in certain situations the bike wobbles in a scary way, even more than with [Casey] Stoner, but he doesn't get off the gas.

"I think we've made a good choice."

Speaking of Hayden's relationship with Stoner, Preziosi added: "It looks like from the first moment there's been great accord between the two of them, also helped by the fact that they speak the same language.

"I don't know whether it'll be the best rider pairing we've ever had, but for sure it will be very harmonious."

Preziosi also indicated that Ducati were happy with the first run of an evolution engine used in the carbon-fibre GP9.

"We were a bit afraid," he said. "Here we had an evolution - never gone on track, not even with test rider [Vittoriano] Guareschi - of what Casey tried in Barcelona.

"Even on the installation lap he did to prepare the bike for the riders, Vittoriano told us it was a good step forward. Most of all in smoothness and progression.

"Casey liked it very much too. The power is still the same, because that's practically imposed by the limitation on the amount of fuel. We've worked on the usual things: fluid dynamics and reduction of frictions. We'll see if it's enough."

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