MotoGP – Valencia – The news: Bayliss wins, Nicky Hayden is World Champion

The race of the Third Millennium. Luck that counterbalances bad luck, dreams that turn into nightmares, living seventeen races in a surreal image, a championship that crowns the new new king today: Nicky Hayden is the 2006 MotoGP World Champion, with merit, determination, determination and with the added value of having believed in it, of having always believed that we could beat... the unbeatable Rossi, who fell today and it was he, alone, who lost this world championship. Troy Bayliss wins the race, but little seems to matter in the face of Nicky Hayden's tears, Valentino Rossi's desperation, and the applause from his Yamaha garage despite everything. A splendid World Championship, an incredible race. This is motorcycling, with Nicky Hayden now the best interpreter of it. World Champion.

The race report

Incredible tension. 129.445 paying spectators who try to break that thin thread that goes from emotion to realism with shouts, chants, trumpets in an attempt to warm the hearts of Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden, who flaunt confidence, bring certainties to their mechanics, but in their hearts they understand that this is the moment of truth, the most important day of motorcycling of the Third Millennium. All in one day, all in 30 laps, all to decree the 2006 MotoGP World Champion: from the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia, the Cheste track, sold-out for the final challenge of the premier two-wheel class. Tension skyrocketing (for us too), the traffic lights come on, engines at full speed... Off we go!!!!!

Very fast Bayliss takes the lead ahead of Capirossi, Pedrosa, Stoner, Rossi and Hayden immediately in contact with the Doctor who immediately overtakes him (and in the subsequent replay it is noted that the two touched slightly at the start). Bayliss on the run, Pedrosa takes second position but Hayden makes a super comeback and also puts Stoner behind him, and in the meantime Rossi is also passed by Melandri. Hayden also overtook Capirossi on the second lap, with only Pedrosa and a phenomenal Bayliss in front of him.

Third lap, at Turn 2 Pedrosa signals with his left foot to Hayden to pass him, so it is and at the moment the Kentucky Kid would be World Champion. Now the other overtakings don't matter, Melandri's attack and pass on Pedrosa matter little, the almost 130.000 in Valencia just do the math, observe, scrutinize and.....INCREDIBLE! RED DONE AT TURN 2! IT'S OVER, IT'S OVER!! Valentino restarts from 20th position, but Hayden is in close contact with Bayliss, he would be champion with a 12 point advantage, the exact gap he had before Estoril.

CLAMOROUS, sensational at Cheste, now he only needs a minimum seventh place at the Kentucky Kid to win the world championship, even though Rossi doesn't score a single point. Hayden runs on the defensive, he is also passed by Capirossi on the seventh lap (two Ducatis in the lead, it should be remembered), while Valentino tries to recover and is approaching Garry McCoy's Ilmor: the race is still long, very long.

Eighth lap, Hofmann falls, Rossi overtakes McCoy and is currently seventeenth, but Hayden doesn't seem to suffer anything so much so that he manages to shake off the Melandri/Pedrosa/Stoner trio who had threatened him up until that moment. Nineteen laps to the checkered flag, straight to Cardoso, crash for Vermeulen and this brings Rossi to fourteenth position, with Carlos Checa 15" behind him, but above all to six points in the championship on Hayden, who in the meantime has caught up with Capirossi and try to pass it.

We have arrived exactly at the halfway point of the race, a necessary summary of the positions: Bayliss in the lead, followed by Capirossi, Hayden, Melandri, Pedrosa, Nakano, Elias, Roberts, Hopkins, Rossi is 14th and doesn't recover much from Checa 13" ahead of him. Let's open a small parenthesis on Bayliss who is truly creating an unimaginable masterpiece in a… surreal race. The debuting Ilmor 800cc stops for the second time in two races (by the way, tomorrow the Honda V4 800 will be presented here in Valencia, stay on these pages for all the details, photos and so on), Pedrosa wakes up and returns fourth overtaking a Melandri now in tire crisis.

Two thirds of the race, nothing new from Cheste, the two Ducatis gain a little on Hayden, Rossi is on average 6 tenths per lap faster than Makoto Tamada in front of him, but to win the world championship with the HRC rider in third place he is required to collect at least eighth place. A small favor comes from Casey Stoner, who falls to the ground for the umpteenth time giving the Doctor another point, while in the Ducati garage they will probably think about what they did in hiring the Australian... wrong, given that Bayliss is still in the lead and resists Capirossi!

Two laps at the epilogue of a film library championship and a race... incredible, unthinkable, surreal, unrepeatable, you choose the most suitable definition to describe a competition that is rewarding Troy Bayliss as winner and Nicky Hayden as World Champion. Nothing new happens, and now we can say it, autograph it, shout it at the top of our lungs: Troy Bayliss wins the MotoGP Valencian Community Grand Prix, his first success in the top class, a success that came after the World Superbike title, at 37 years old, but today it is above all the day of…

Nicky Hayden, third and the NEW MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPION 2006. World Champion, World Champion, champion of tears, champion of the impossible. Valentino, this time you lost it: Nicky Hayden is World Champion, World Champion...

Alessio Piana