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The Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia hosted the 18th race and season-ending finale of the 2010 MotoGP season.
Despite Yamaha No. 2 Jorge Lorenzo already having been crowned world champion there was still plenty of intrigue to keep the Spanish fans and global audience on the edge of their seats.
Lorenzo entered the race, at a circuit at which he had never won in any category, with the opportunity of overhauling arch-rival Valentino Rossi's record points total for a single MotoGP season.
Trying to prevent him, in addition to factory team-mate Rossi, was fellow Spaniard Dani Pedrosa who has the most successes at the Spanish circuit and is the only rider to have won in all three classes.
He was leading Ducati rider, Casey Stoner who won in 2008 but fell in 2009 having secured pole position, and Rookie of the Year, American Ben Spies, despite dislocating an ankle last weekend in Portugal.
It was Australian Stoner who set the pace in qualifying, being the only rider to negotiate the track in under 1:32, securing his fourth pole of the season. Lorenzo, sporting a special-edition golden helmet, having led for much of the session, finished second while the aggressive Italian rookie, Marco Simoncelli, made it onto the front row for the first time. A late surge from Rossi left him fourth.
Heading into the race Stoner was confident of signing off from Ducati with a victory having secured his victory in 2008 from pole. In a fascinating start Rossi dropped to ninth and Lorenzo to fifth as Stoner and Pedrosa exchanged the lead, seemingly at will.
Rossi steadily made his way back up the field and took advantage of a dramatic incident involving Lorenzo and Simoncelli to force his way through. Lorenzo had tried to intimidate the Italian on several corners yet Simoncelli held his nerve to close the door on each occasion, until his front wheel scraped Simoncelli's arm as they leant into the bend, sending Lorenzo's bike into a near-calamitous wobble. Lorenzo did well to recover but not in time to prevent Rossi from passing.
This led to an almighty scrap between the pair. Inspired by his great escape Lorenzo finally took Rossi before sweeping past Stoner with eight laps to go.
Ultimately, Lorenzo prevailed taking his ninth win of the 18-race campaign in front of a delighted home crowd. In winning for the first time at Valencia he also overtook Rossi's record points tally by 10 points, setting a new benchmark of 383. The podium was completed by Stoner and Rossi, who, by virtue of this result, finshed the season in third behind Pedrosa.
There is little chance for any of them to celebrate as testing for the 2011 season starts this week with several riders swapping seats.
Highest profile of these is Rossi who switches to Italian manufacturer Ducati (along with the majority of his team), ending seven successful years with Yamaha.
Vacating the seat at Ducati is Stoner who now switches across to the Honda factory team who have yet to finalise their line-up. Already boasting young hot-shots Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso Honda need to decide whether to farm out one of these or run a third factory bike.
Despite the 2010 season having finished, the intrigue has already begun ahead of 2011.
