Valentino Rossi grabs his ninth world title in a rain-washed Sepang

Ron Lieback
AllAboutBikes.com Content Editor

The podium at the rain-soaked Shell Advance Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix Sunday featured the same riders as last week at Phillip Island, but with second and third swapping positions.  

After another dominating performance, Casey Stoner took the victory at Sepang, with Dani Pedrosa arriving to the finish line second and Valentino Rossi third. But the celebrations didn’t go to the winner; all revelry went to “the Doctor,” whose finish secured a ninth world title (seventh in the premier class).

With nine titles, Rossi has now matched Mike Hailwood and Carlo Ubbiali; only Agostini has more (15) titles. Rossi also has 103 wins, 19 less than Agostini, and 163 podiums. The Fiat Yamaha rider has 44 wins for Yamaha since he joined in 2004, being the most successful Yamaha rider, with 21 more wins than Kenny Roberts, yamaha’s second most successful rider.

“Today’s race went a bit like how the season has gone, because we were so fast on the dry tires, 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,” the 30-year-old Rossi said. “It’s a great achievement, and for me it’s the ninth championship, the seventh in MotoGP. 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.”

After a 35-minute delay due to a torrential downpour, Rossi got off the line from his pole position but ran wide in turn 1, getting stuck back in eight. His teammate Jorge Lorenzo also had problems; during the sighting lap (warm-up lap), the Spaniard had some issues with his Yamaha M1, failing to get to second-place where he qualified on the starting grid, and instead started in 10th.

After Rossi’s messy start, he then lost two more positions, including one to Lorenzo, and finished the first lap in 10th place. But he began picking off riders, and soon was in third place. The Italian cruised along, seemingly not being to aggressive due to certain wet parts of the circuit, knowing a podium finish would be satisfying.

It was all Stoner up front; by lap 9, the Australian had built up a 15-second lead over second-place rider Dani Pedrosa, eventually finishing the race ahead of the Repsol Honda rider by a huge 14.66 seconds. Pedrosa’s finish was his 78th podium across all classes.

Ducati Marlboro rider Nicky Hayden held the fourth spot, and attempted to hold off Lorenzo. But on lap 8, the Spaniard Lorenzo passed Hayden before Rossi came and passed both Hayden and Lorenzo to take third place. Hayden went on to finish in fifth, which was his second-best result this season.

As Stoner’s lead continued to grow, Pedrosa fought with his teammate Andrea Dovizioso for second place, but on lap 14 Dovizioso slid off the track due to the wet conditions, giving Pedrosa second place. Another rider that also DNF’d due to a crash was Randy de Puniet; the Frenchman viciously high-sided during lap 2.

Chris Vermeulen (Rizla Suzuki), Toni Elías (San Carlo Honda Gresini), Marco Melandri (Hayate Racing), Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki) and Mika Kallio (Pramac Racing) completed the top ten.

For results and standings, click here.