In his final race with the Honda LCR team, Australian rider Casey Stoner failed to finish today’s Valencia Grand Prix. Stoner was running in a strong fifth place when he crashed at turn six, on lap 24. Stoner was unhurt, and hugely disappointed, to end his rookie season with LCR on a Honda RC211V by crashing out.

For most of the race Stoner had fought a close battle with fellow Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Marco Melandri for fourth place with the trio swapping places many times. Stoner was fifth, just behind Pedrosa, when his race ended. The race was won by Troy Bayliss with Nicky Hayden claiming the world championship victory before a massive crowd of 129,000 spectators.

“First of all I want to congratulate Honda and Nicky Hayden for winning the world championship, they deserve this victory. Casey finished eighth in the championship and our target was for the top 10, and with some good luck Casey could have been fifth. Overall it has been a positive season, despite some problems. Now I’m looking ahead to 2007 when we race with Carlos Checa and I pass my best wishes to Casey for his new career.”

“Today I really I wanted to get a nice result for myself and the LCR team. But it’s strange, I don’t know what is happening -- so many times recently we are fast in practices and have the perfect race set-up, the perfect tyre and then the bike feels nothing like it does in practice. Today it just wouldn’t turn like it did in practice. I’m really disappointed, after everything was so sweet at the start of the season. But I want give a big thanks to the whole LCR team who gave me this opportunity and stuck with me this year.”