Spain's Jorge Lorenzo claimed his third MotoGP world championship with victory at the Valencia Grand Prix yesterday as he withstood Yamaha teammate Valentino Rossi's charge through the field
Movistar Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo with the trophy after the MotoGP world championship in Valencia yesterday
Valencia: Spain's Jorge Lorenzo claimed his third MotoGP world championship with victory at the Valencia Grand Prix yesterday as he withstood Yamaha teammate Valentino Rossi's charge through the field.
Movistar Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo with the trophy after the MotoGP world championship in Valencia yesterday. Pic/AFP
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Rossi climbed to fourth despite starting at the back of the grid as punishment for kicking Marc Marquez off his bike at the Malaysian GP.
However, Lorenzo held off pressure from Honda duo Marquez and Dani Pedrosa to lead the race from start to finish to overcome a seven-point deficit heading into the final GP of the season and claim the title by five points.
With an estimated 110,000 fans looking on Lorenzo crossed the finish line in a time of 40mins 59.364sec with Marquez and Pedrosa less than a second back in second and third respectively. "It is possibly the happiest day of my life, the day when I have been most emotional. I was crying
during the whole lap of honour for the emotion of how difficult this title was to win," We were always behind and then the last race was perfec. The tyres were destroyed and I had to ride very carefully in the final lap to not crash," said Lorenzo.