Valencia, on Spain's Mediterranean coast, is a beautiful town in a beautiful location. And fittingly it has a beautiful racetrack. Circuit Ricardo Tormo is a great combination of fast, open sections with a tight, technical infield. It traditionally gives us hard, tight racing and is a famous upsetter of predicted results. It's also one of the very few circuits anywhere that has yet to be blessed with the combination of Valentino Rossi and the Yamaha M1 taking the top step. And if he doesn't do it this weekend then he never will, because it's the last race of the season.

The first free practice session was headed by Casey Stoner, setting his stall and firing the opening shot in the battle for third in the championship. Jorge Lorenzo got into second ahead of Dovizioso and Simoncelli. Interestingly, Rossi was struggling in fifth, complaining of a lack of grip. And things just got worse for the former champion as practice went on, the Italian ending his last ever practice sessions on the M1 in a lowly tenth. Up at the front, Lorenzo pipped Stoner for the top of the second session, while Stoner was back in front for the third. In fact, the only truly consistent rider was Marco Simoncelli, fourth in each session and the fastest Honda in one. Dani Pedrosa took second place in the third session, trying to put his injured shoulder behind him, while Colin Edwards made a welcome return to the sharp end in session two, finishing just behind Stoner in third.

Valencia being on the other side of the Iberian peninsula from Estoril, the weather is rather more predictable and frequently somewhat nicer. As it was this weekend. So we were at least able to rely on qualifying happening as planned, and that meant that practice was still not especially important. But it did show us, without any shadow of a doubt, that Valentino Rossi was struggling.

Of course, it's qualifying that really matters. Because that's what decides just how big and hard a job of work the rider has to do on Sunday. And Valentino Rossi gave himself a mountain to do as he bumped around the middle of the third row, being bested by people who really shouldn't even be getting close. Up at the front, early leader de Puniet was soon relegated as Nicky Hayden upped his game. The Kentucky kid was soon deposed by Stoner, who in turn relinquished pole to the on form Jorge Lorenzo before getting it back again. Marco Simoncelli pushed Lorenzo back to third and took a vast chunk out of Stoner's apparently unassailable lead, the Australian being the only rider on the grid to dip below one minute thirty two seconds. And while Simoncelli pushed hard, Stoner responded and put in a lap a full tenth of a second quicker yet. With just six minutes to go, Valentino Rossi swapped bikes. And a couple of laps later he hauled himself up from twelfth to eighth. Then, on the last possible lap of the session he made another leap up to fourth, a mere eight hundredths of a second off the front row. Lorenzo also dug deep, just managing to slip past Simoncelli by a tenth of a second, the lanky Italian still holding onto his first ever front row start. Nicky Hayden and Ben Spies were split by just a tenth, in turn a tenth behind Rossi to complete row two, while Colin Edwards headed row three, a hundredth of a second behind his team-mate, with the factory Honda pairing of Pedrosa and Dovizioso snapping at his heels. Rounding out the top ten on row four, Marco Melandri in his last GP before heading off to the factory Yamaha SBK team next season.

Race day dawned, bright and mild, which boded well. Starting off in warmup, Nicky Hayden was the man on a mission, going quicker than Lorenzo or Stoner and definitely laying down the gauntlet for the rest of the day. Pedrosa was fourth from Edwards and Simoncelli, with Rossi back in eighth behind Barbera. But as we all know, warmup doesn't really mean a great deal. Though it's great for head games.

Lining up for the race, then, there would have been some interesting stuff going on inside the variety of exotic and expensive headgear on the grid. Stoner would no doubt have been considering his disastrous 2009 outing here, when he fell off on the sighting lap. Spies would be contemplating the state of his ankle and hoping it would last out, as would Pedrosa and Rossi with their shoulders. Lorenzo was probably hoping that he wouldn't scuff his very shiny and extremely expensive new helmet. The gold design, inlaid with Swarowski crystal, is reputed to have cost twelve thousand Euros, and if I'm to be completely honest, is probably the tackiest thing I've seen on the grid, ever. And I raced in the eighties where chest wigs were deemed acceptable in some places.

Enough with the unpleasant imagery. Lights out and as usual, Casey Stoner made the most of his pole position to take the holeshot into turn one. But the real mover was Dani Pedrosa, who sliced through the pack, slipping left then cutting back to the right before diving onto the inside at turn two to take second place. In fact he nearly took the lead, but decided that discretion was probably the better part of valour and slipped in behind Stoner. Nicky Hayden made a great start as well, while Lorenzo and Rossi got swallowed up in the pack. Crossing the line at the end of the first lap, Stoner led Nicky Hayden, who had stormed past Pedrosa a few corners earlier, by a third of a second. Pedrosa trailed by two tenths, with Simoncelli and Lorenzo a similar distance behind and apart. Then Dovizioso, Spies and Rossi, each a third of a second back and a similar distance apart again. So in just one lap, Rossi had dropped nearly two seconds off the lead.

Nicky Hayden is a single minded sort of chap, as was pushing hard in pursuit of Stoner, but failing to drop off that pesky Pedrosa. A little bit further back, Simoncelli and Lorenzo were locked in the sort of bare knuckle fight that even Rossi would have avoided, swapping paint and position regularly until, coming into the last bend, Lorenzo stuffed the Yamaha down the inside and into Simoncelli's blind spot. The trouble with that, of course, is that Simoncelli couldn't see him and carried on to hit the apex. The resulting collision, with Lorenzo's front wheel hitting the Italian's left leg and side, nearly through Lorenzo off. In fact, he crashed but somehow didn't fall off the bike. Simoncelli, who in this case was the innocent party anyway, carried on unperturbed. But Lorenzo took a while to get the bucking, shaking, sliding Yamaha back under control and found himself back in eighth behind Ben Spies. Rossi, now in sixth and casing down Dovizioso, must have thought it was an early Christmas. And just one corner later it got even better for the Italian as Hayden's determined assault on the lead proved to be his undoing when the likeable American crashed hard on the first corner of the third lap. Happily he was unhurt, and as he later said, if he wasn't pushing it to the limit then there was precious little point in his being there. But his departure did leave a bit of a gap a the front. And the man most likely to fill it was on the move. Valentino Rossi despatched Dovizioso without a problem on lap three, moving forward until he was in a position to attack Simoncelli. That Honda is fast, but on lap six the former champion was able to push past and make it stick.

Up at the front, Stoner hadn't cleared off as we expected, but was still being harried by Pedrosa, anxious to do well at this, his local circuit. And his having to ride defensively was playing into the hands of those in pursuit. It took less than three laps for Rossi to join on the back of the group, followed by Lorenzo who had managed to force a pass on Simoncelli a lap after his team-mate. And it took just one more lap for Rossi to pass Pedrosa, unsettling the Spaniard sufficiently to leave a gap large enough for Lorenzo to take at the next corner. It was another couple of laps before Rossi's injured shoulder really started to show and his pace relaxed slightly allowing Lorenzo to pass him. From there it was just a matter of time before the champion passed Stoner for the lead, which he did on lap twenty three. Though he still didn't open a huge gap, and though Stoner fought like the former champion he is, it was clear that the Ducati doesn't have the agility to compete with the Yamaha in the crucial infield section, and Lorenzo was able to stay ahead. Rossi pushed as hard as he could, but the slight power deficit of the Yamaha against the Ducati, allied to his injury, simply meant that today he was going to have to settle for third. And so it transpired that of the three podium sitters, only one - Lorenzo - would be staying with the same team next season.

But further back there was a more interesting battle going on. Because the bikes were essentially the same - Simoncelli on the factory backed Gresini Honda and Dovizioso and Pedrosa on the full factory Repsol Hondas. And just to muddy the waters further, Ben Spies closed on the battling trio to make it a quartet. The lead of this small group changed several times, occasionally even during the same lap. Dovizioso went from the front to third at one point, wile Simoncelli and Pedrosa swapped spots. And Spies sat there, watching and making notes. Then the Texan struck, passing Pedrosa for the last time on lap twenty when the Spaniard suddenly slowed, presumably as his injuries got the better of him. It took a few more laps of nonsense fro the Honda riders ahead before Spies was able to take advantage again, but when he did, on lap twenty six, he got past both in quick succession and really pushed to maintain his position. It worked, too, as he crossed the line over a second clear of Dovizioso, who finally managed to use his experience to beat the upstart Simoncelli into sixth, with Pedrosa a distant seventh.

Hector Barbera won his race-long battle with Suzuki's Alvaro Bautista to take eighth, while Randy de Puniet, in his last race for LCR Honda before going to the Pramac Ducati team, completed the top ten.

So that's it for another season. Jorge Lorenzo has taken the most points ever in one season, the most podium finishes and the most front row starts. All three of those honours were previously held by one Valentino Rossi. Testing starts on Tuesday for the MotoGP riders, with Rossi and Spies both flying off immediately afterwards to have their respective shoulder and ankle operated on. Expect to see them, and Dani Pedrosa, back fully fit before the next tests in February. It's not been a bad season, and next year's promises to be better yet, provided that everyone can stay uninjured. Expect Rossi, Lorenzo, Stoner, Pedrosa and Hayden to be fighting for the lead from the off, and don't be surprised to see Spies in there soon enough as well.

Bring it on...

SB

Valencia MotoGP Results

1. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)
2. Casey Stoner (Ducati)
3. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
4. Ben Spies (Yamaha)
5. Andrea Dovizioso(Honda)
6. Marco Simoncelli (Honda)
7. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)
8. Hector Barbera (Ducati)
9. Alvaro Bautista (Suzuki)
10. Randy de Puniet (Honda)

MotoGP standings (after eighteen rounds)

1. Jorge Lorenzo 383 (2010 MotoGP World Champion)
2. Dani Pedrosa 245
3. Valentino Rossi 233
4. Casey Stoner 225
5. Andrea Dovizioso 206
6. Ben Spies 176
7. Nicky Hayden 163
8. Marco Simoncelli 125
9. Randy de Puniet 116
10. Marco Melandri 103