Yesterday afternoon in qualifying for the 2007 Gran Premio Bwin.com De La Comunitat Valeciana, Valentino Rossi and his Fiat-Yamaha hit the gravel after suffering a nasty high-side which left the Italian with three broken bones in his right hand and wrist. Meanwhile, Spanish homeboy Dani Pedrosa rode to his fourth consecutive pole position. Thus when the time came to grid for today’s Gran Premio Bwin.com De La Comunitat Valeciana, Pedrosa was on pole while Rossi was back in a lowly 17th. Before 132,500 fans, the race began and Casey Stoner went right to the front followed closely by Pedrosa. However, on lap six of the 30-lap affair, Pedrosa roared by Stoner and into the lead. Not long after, Valentino Rossi ran wide in a corner, lost a tremendous amount of time and soon pulled into the pits, his race run. With Rossi out and Pedrosa racing away to win by 5.447 seconds, he snatched second place away for Rossi in the final MotoGP World Championship point’s battle — by a single point!

“Yes, I’m very happy,” Pedrosa said after the race. “The race was very difficult. All the time pushing, pushing and very hard. The pace was very fast, so I must say thanks to the team because they worked really good and really hard all the weekend. So the tires were perfect, also the bike. So I must be happy on that point. But also about second place in the championship. I didn’t expect that, so after this difficult season second place is not really, really bad, anyway. So I think everybody enjoyed this weekend and, I mean the people, the crowd, and I hope the next season I can enjoy also.”

Second place fell to new World Champion Casey Stoner of the Marlboro Ducati outfit.

“I didn’t really have anything left,” Stoner said. “You know, we got a really good start, I led for the first few laps and the lap times seemed to be okay. And, you know, I kept as consistent pace as I could and pretty much pushed the bike as much as I could. I had a few front loses and things like that and we just couldn’t go much quicker. We were doing low 33s and obviously Dani [Pedrosa] was just doing a tenth of a lap quicker or something like that and sometimes I’d catch him back and he’d pull again. So, you know it was very close for a long time during most of the race. Dani rode a perfect race and he didn’t make any mistakes. And definitely running a lot quicker pace than what I expected for the race. So congratulations to him and thanks to my team and everybody for such a fantastic season.”

John Hopkins, in his final race for the Rizla Suzuki team, scored his fourth podium of the season with a fine third place finish in sunny Spain.

“I mean, the ultimate goal today was to go out and get on the podium whether it be the top step, second or third,” Hopkins said. “So, no, we’re happy with what we could take.”

Hopkins, who will leave longtime employer Suzuki to race for Kawasaki in 2008 spoke about his tenure with the Suzuki organization.

“Basically Suzuki has given me a life in MotoGP,” he enthused. “It’s made my career and made it what it is today. So I can’t thank them enough. It’s an emotional time right now. It’s the last race with them for five years, so it’s been great. Bridgestone tires have been unbelievable to me. No, I’m just really happy.”

Marco Melandri, after passing vanquished 2006 World Champion Nicky Hayden on lap number 22, was fourth overall. Marlboro Ducati’s Loris Capirossi placed fifth and Rizla Suzuki’s Chris Vermeulen was sixth.