Valencia, Spain – In the end it was just too much to ask of the tyres, of the motorcycle and ultimately of the man. Valentino Rossi sliced his way through from the back of the grid to fourth, but there was no way he was going to reel in local heroes Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa, who finished in that order less within less than a second, handing the 2015 MotoGP title to Lorenzo by five points.
The Binder brothers from Potchefstroom once again showed they’ve got the right stuff as Brad worked his way up from ninth on the Moto3 grid to miss out on a podium finish by just 0.031sec, and Darryn jostled though the midfield after qualifying 26th to come home 18th.
MOTOGP
When the lights went out it was pole man Lorenzo who led into the first corner, closely followed by the two Hondas of Marquez and Pedrosa , and Andrea Iannone on the Ducati Team GP15. Rossi pulled an amazing start, making up seven places off the line and was up to 16th after the first corner.
‘The Doctor’ was a man on a mission and, while the four riders at the front started to open up a gap, he carved his way through the field - 15th at the of the first lap and 12th after lap 2. He passed Aprilia privateer Stefan Bradl for 11th on the third lap, before swiftly disposing of wild card Michele Pirro (Ducati Team) to move into 10th.
On the same lap Iannone lost the front at Turn 12 and crashed out of the race, moving Rossi up to ninth.
At the front, however, Lorenzo was managing the gap to Marquez at jus under half a second, while Pedrosa had started to fall back from his team-mate, but the front three had now opened up a 3.5 second gap to the fourth placed Andrea Dovizioso on the second Ducati Team machine.
Rossi continued his charge, and by lap five he was embroiled in a battle for sixth with the Yamaha Tech 3 duo of Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro, along with Ducati privateer Danilo Petrucci. On lap six he passed Smith for 8th, a lap later Petrucci ran wide and Rossi was up into seventh - but by this point Pol Espargaro had escaped 1.2 seconds further up the road. Rossi set off in hot pursuit.
By lap nine he had closed down Pol Espargaro, and there was contact as he passed the Yamaha rider on lap 10 for sixth, but nothing was going to slow Rossi’s progress. Two laps later he made his move on Aleix Espargaro’s works Suzuki going into Turn 1, but Espargaro fought back and Rossi had to wait until Turn 5 to make it stick. Unbelievably he was now up to fifth, and a few corners later he took Dovizioso for fourth, but by this point he was 11 seconds behind Pedrosa in third.
And that was to be as good as it would get for Rossi; by this point he was lapping three tenths slower than the leaders.
Lorenzo was still managing the gap at the front; every time Marquez appeared to close him down, he opened up a 0.4 second lead again as the two began to pull away from Pedrosa.
Then, eight laps from the end, Pedrosa pulled the pin; suddenly he was the fastest man on the circuit and within five laps he’d closed to within half a second. With two laps to go, Pedrosa made a move on Marquez into second, but Marquez fought back immediately.
Marquez threw everything at him on the final lap but Lorenzo kept his cool to take the win by 0.263sec - his seventh of the season, his 540th in the premier class and his 61st since qualifying for his Grand Prix debut on his 15th birthday in 2002. It also made him only the third rider in the history of the premier class to overturn a points deficit going into the final race to take the title.
Marquez and Pedrosa completed the podium and Rossi crossed the line 19 seconds behind Lorenzo for fourth; despite a simply astounding ride, he would have to wait to lift that elusive 10th title.
Pol Espargaro in fifth was the leading Satellite rider, 2.8sec on team mate Bradley Smith – which was good enough to clinch sixth in the championship standings and make Smith the top satellite rider of 2015.
Dovizioso finished in seventh as the leading Ducati, ahead of Aleix Espargaro, while Honda privateer Cal Crutchlow, who’d had bike problems before the start and been relegated to the back of the grid alongside Rossi, put in a determined ride to finish ninth, with satellite Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci completing the top 10.
MOTO2
Local Tito Rabat (Kalex) bowed out of the Moto2 class with his 13th intermediate-class win – and his third of the season – making him the most successful rider in the history of the class, before moving up to MotoGP in 2016.
It capped a remarkable comeback from the broken radius that forced Rabat to miss the flyway rounds.
But there was plenty of drama before that, as the race was red-flagged just 91 seconds in, after multiple pile-up in the first corner that took out Kalex riders Franco Morbidelli, Hafizh Syahrin, Jonas Folger, Xavier Simeon and Robin Mulhauser, as well as Marcel Schrotter (Tech 3), Federico Fuligni (Suter) and Xavi Vierge (Tech 3).
Syahrin and Morbidelli were taken to the medical centre for further treatment, but the rest made it back to the grid for re-start, reduced to 18 laps.
Rabat enjoyed a race-long duel with his compatriot Alex Rins, eventually beating him to the line by just 0.309s; it was Moto2 rookie of the year Rins’ 10th podium of the season , ensuring he finished the season second in the championship standings – three points ahead of Rabat.
Three seconds later Thomas Luthi made it it an all-Kalex podium, to finish fifth overall for the season.
Teenager Lorenzo Baldassari was fourth, ending the season in style with three top five finishes in the last three races, ahead of Sam Lowes (Speed Up), the highest-placed non-Kalex rider, who battled his way up from 10th on the grid to fifth, finishing the season fourth in the standings.
Luis Salom came sixth for the third race in a row, less than half a second ahead of 2015 champion Johann Zarco, who gave the 2016 Kalex chassis its race debut. Zarco missed out on a new podium record but finished the season with a class-record 352 points.
Simone Corsi (Forward Racing) and Mika Kallio (Speed Up) completed the top 10, with Kallio also bidding farewell to the class after announcing he would be the test rider for KTM on its MotoGP project in 2016.
MOTO3
Works KTM rider Miguel Oliveira took the race win, but Danny Kent came home ninth to take 2015 Moto3 title – the first British world champion since Barry Sheene in the 500cc class in 1977.
Oliveira - Kent’s only title rival - knew that he had to win and Kent finish 15th or lower to deny the Brit the title and he did his part by taking the race victory, but was denied the championship by Kent’s mature performance.
Starting from fourth, Oliveira took the lead at the first corner and rode superbly in the leading pack to control the race and win by 0.198s from Jorge Navarro (Honda) after Niccolo Antonelli (also on a Honda) crashed at the last corner, taking out podium challengers Efren Vazquez (Honda) and Romano Fenati (KTM) in the process.
That left KTM privateer Jakub Kornfeil to complete the podium, but Sunday belonged to Kent as he finished ninth to secure the title at his fourth attempt.
Kent had to start from 18th, but by the end of lap one he was already 15th. Slowly but surely he made his way through the field up to 11th, before being embroiled in a battle with his team-mate Hiroki Ono over the final couple of laps.
Kent dropped down to 12th on the last lap as Ono made his move, but with three riders falling ahead of him on the last corner was promoted to ninth, adding seven points to his tally for the season and ending the 38 year wait for a British world champion – and the first in the junior class since Dave Simmonds in 1969.
It was Navarro’s fourth podium in the final five races, moving him up to seventh in the standings at the expense of the unlucky Vazquez, while Kornfeil made the short walk to glory for only the second time in his career, after finishing second at Silverstone earlier in the year.
Oliveira’s team-mate Brad Binder came home fourth after a typically gutsy ride, starting from ninth and working his way up through the leading bunch to finish just ahead of Honda privateer Enea Bastianini, Isaac Viñales (KTM) and pole man John McPhee (Honda) who faded during the race to finish seventh.
Kent’s team-mate Ono beat him to the line to finish eighth, with Kent and Phillip Oettl (KTM) completing the top 10.
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