2009 announced itself to be a four way fight for the title with Valentino Rossi favourite to take another premier class crown. But his biggest rival might become his teammate at Yamaha, double 250cc world champion Jorge Lorenzo. Stoner wants to regain the championship that he lost to Rossi in 2008 and Pedrosa is Honda's leading rider to challenge the other three and reclaim the title for Honda since Nicky Hayden in 2006. Bridgestone would become single tyre supplier for MotoGP and to reduce costs, Friday morning practice was dropped and at a later stage, a limited number of engines would be availble to any rider. Before the kick off, the financial crisis took out Kawasaki and suddenly Marco Melandri and John Hopkins were without a ride. 2009 saw the return of Sete Gibernau to MotoGP on a privateer run Ducati and with the top 250cc riders not making the move up, Mika Kallio was the top rookie.
Pedrosa wasn't completely fit before the start of the season, nor was Tech3's James Toseland aftre two heavy crashes during testing. The opening round had to be run on Monday since it was pouring in the Qatarese desert one day earlier. Stoner took his third victory in a row at this track and surely looked to be ready to take on the Yamahas. There was one Kawasaki present though, run by the Hayate team, in the hands of .... Marco Melandri ( who was actually establishing himself as a very talented car racer in the wake of getting back into the top flight for 2010 ). No support and no development was foreseen and Melandri delivered the goods durings the first few races with a spectacular 2nd place at Le Mans as the highlight of the season. After his horror season 2008 on the factory Ducati, the exit of Kawasaki, things definitely didn't look bright for the Italian. But he grabbed his chance, took it, proved once again that he is one of the best riders out there and returns home to Fausto Gresini's team for 2010 on a privateer Honda but with a good shot at some very strong results. In the meantime, the four big guns were in full contention for the championship ( although Pedrosa would suffer from his injuries ) with Rossi wining in Spain and Catalunya, Stoner handing Ducatis first "home" win at Mugello and breaking Rossi's 7 year reign at the Tuscan circuit and Lorenzo crossing the line in first in Japan and France As a result, all three riders were at 106 points when heading for the Dutch TT.
Already Stoner had been experiencing quite some trouble to keep up with the other three riders and looked completely exhausted after the finish. The mystery surrounding his physical and/or mental state was leading to all sorts of speculations and after a disastrous British GP, the Aussie decided not to compete in the next three races to sort out his disease and come back healthy. With Pedrosa still not being able to close the gap to the Yamaha boys ( although winning at Laguna Seca) , the title would turn out to be a fight between teammates. After crashing out of the lead twice in as many races, it looked as if Lorenzo was presenting Rossi's ninth on a plate but a rare and stupid mistake by the Italian at indy and 2nd place at Misano brought the Mallorcan back within 30 points of his teammate and everything to play for with 100 points up for grabs. A dominating performance at Estoril, ahead of the returning Casey Stoner and Vale only in 4th, saw Jorge close the gap to 18 points with three races remaining.
The title chase took a decisive turn at Philip Island. Trying to make up for a poor start, Lorenzo runs into Hayden's Ducati on the run down to the first corner and knocks himself out of the race and the championship. With Stoner back to full fitness and a strong win over Rossi in Australia, Jorge would need some divine intervention to get his hands on the 2009 crown. Rain in Malaysia, a dominating win by Stoner and Lorenzo finishing behind his teammate sealed his 2009 fate and Rossi's 9th world title. Pedrosa went on to win the final round at Valencia and leapfrogged Stoner for third in the standings when the latter crashed on cold tyres during the warm up lap.
Additional facts & figures
- The average difference between first and runner up was 5,111 seconds.
- The gap was less than 1,000 seconds on three occasions.
- The biggest gap was 17,710 at Le Mans.
- The smallest gap was 0,095 seconds at Catalunya.
- 18 riders started the season.
- The field consisted of 4 Yamahas, 5 Ducatis, 6 Hondas, 2 Suzukis and 1 Kawasaki.
- Takahashi was replaced by Talmacsi at Scot Honda, Gibernau had to pull out together with his team due to financial woes and Espargaro replaced Kallio ( and later on Canepa ) at Pramac when the Finn was taking Stoner's seat at the factory squad during his absence.
- World Superbike Champion Ben Spies would ride another Yamaha M1 during the final round of the season.
It has to be Rossi's dive on the inside at the final turn in Catalunya. With the two Yamahas crushing the opposition, Lorenzo and Rossi were entangled in a awesome tussle and just when it looked as if lorenzo would finally beat his illustrious teammate, Rossi pulled a move that no one expected in a turn where it was to be considered impossible to pass. He stuffed it on the inside of Jorge, managed to keep the bike upright and than accelerate hard onto the straight towards victory. Even when you think he's down and out he still manages to pull something out of the bag....just BRILLIANT!
Performance of the year
Well, Rossi won his 100th race at Assen, Edwards finishing 5th in the standings, Rossi's move ( as described above ), Lorenzo's win in Portugal....or even De Angelis' brave move down the inside at his home race ( what was he thinking ???? ) could be rated as an astonishing performance but I have to go with Melandri's rebound into competition . After finally landing a true factory ride, it turns into his biggest nightmare. He brakes his contract ( with mutual consent ) and signs a deal with the factory Kawasaki team. Not long before the start of the season, Team Green decides to pull the plug on their MotoGP project and so Marco's again without a ride and all seast taken and nowhere to go. He goes car racing instead to keep himself busy, is quite succesfull at it and then the opportunity arises to enter the 2009 MotoGP World Championship after all albeit on a privateer Kawasaki and without any support or development from the factory. A carefull start brings him 14th at the opening round in Qatar but 6th in Motegi, followed by 5th in Jerez leads to an astonishing second place in Le Mans. In Mugello he manages to lead the race for a brief instance but it only took him 5 races to show the motorcycling world again what he is capable of. For 2010, he rejoins Gresini on a Honda and let's hope he can pull in some great performances one many occasions like he did on an inferior bike in 2009.
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