Valentino Rossi in classy Dani Pedrosa tribute: WATCH VIDEO as MotoGP stars embrace

Rossi greeted Pedrosa on the track following today's final race of the season.

Pedrosa announced earlier this year that he would be retiring at the end of the campaign after an 18-year career.

And Rossi made sure to pay respect to the Spaniard after he finished in fifth.

Rossi himself was only 11th after a late crash robbed him of a place on the podium.

Speaking earlier this week about Pedrosa, the Italian rider said: "Pedrosa is a great rival for me and I remember a very hard battle, the stronger one, in Brno in 2006 when he fought for second position in the last three or four laps which was very hard.

“Dani deserves a championship, because he won a lot of races – more than 50 races [54 in total at world level] – and he was super competitive in MotoGP. We will miss him."

Andrea Dovizioso mastered wet conditions in a dramatic two-part race to win the MotoGP season finale at the Valencia.

The Ducati rider twice passed Suzuki's Alex Rins, the long-time leader, before and after a 40-minute red-flag stoppage to record his fourth victory of the season.

“Dani deserves a championship... we will miss him”
Valentino Rossi

A crash for seven-times champion Valentino Rossi with five laps to go handed Pol Espargaro and KTM their first podium in the premier class.

Rossi still secured third place in the championship ahead of Yamaha team mate and pole-sitter Maverick Vinales, who was one of several riders to crash out as conditions took a turn for the worse.

Marc Marquez, who wrapped up his fifth world title with three races to spare in Japan last month, went down with 21 laps to go after starting fifth.

The red flags were out on lap 15, and the race order was rolled back to lap 13.

Spaniard Rins held the lead off the line but Dovizioso passed him on the main straight on the next lap, before pulling away to take the chequered flag with a healthy advantage of 2.75 seconds.

Let's block ads! (Why?)