Ducati MotoGP team completes glorious season whit 2nd & 5th places at Valencia -ozzy go-

Ducati MotoGP Team rider Casey Stoner finished a hard-fought
second in today's tense, season-ending Valencia Grand Prix
watched by an appreciative 132,500 fans. Loris Capirossi finished
his final race for the team in fifth place after a spirited ride from
eighth on the grid.

The race concluded a remarkable season for World Champion
Stoner who has scored ten victories and a further four podiums
from 18 races. The awesome Aussie scored a tally of 367 points
equalling the all-time points record and putting him an amazing
125 points ahead of series runner-up Dani Pedrosa, who won
today's race. Stoner's stunning run of victories and Capirossi's
Motegi win also helped Ducati to the constructors' crown and the
Ducati MotoGP Team to the teams' title.

Stoner led the first five laps of today's race before Pedrosa came
past. The pair set a blisteringly fast pace that soon moved them
well clear of the pack, the gap between them growing by a tenth
here, shrinking by a tenth there.

Capirossi's farewell ride, after five seasons and seven victories,
including Ducati's debut MotoGP win in 2003, took the Italian to
seventh overall. The team's Desmosedici GP7 machines wore a
special 'Made In Italy' livery today and the duo were cheered all
the way by the entire Ducati Corse staff, flown into Valencia from
Bologna this morning aboard a specially chartered plane.

CASEY STONER, 2nd place, World Champion on 367 points
"I expected the pace to be low 33s, but I didn't expect it to be so
fast for so long. Everything seemed good, then Dani came past
and pulled a bit of an advantage straight away and I wasn't able
to claw it back. I could pretty much hold it, then he'd eke out a
tenth or two, then I'd get some of it back, then he'd take out a
little more. He rode a faultless race, so he deserved the win. I'm
happy for him because I now know what it's like to win your
home GP - it's a very good feeling, especially in this class. We
were pushing hard and I had a couple of front-end slides but the
bike was feeling good. Then with five laps to go I lost some grip,
so I eased off a bit because we were quite a distance in front of
the rest. I'm happy with the way I rode, I got the best out of the
bike, so I'm reasonably happy. It's been a fantastic year, we
can't say anything bad about it, my worst result was the race
where we won the championship so the title made up for that! I
think next year everyone will come out a little tougher, a little
stronger, so I'm going to make sure I do everything I can to
come out on top again." full story on ducati.com - ad pic from
motograndprix.it