Today in Motorsport History, November 6: Melandri Beat Hayden by 0.097s at Valencia in 2005 as Rossi Charged From 15th to Third

On November 6, 2005, Marco Melandri beat Nicky Hayden by 0.097s at Valencia as Valentino Rossi charged from 15th to third. Why the finale mattered.

EL Puckett Published: November 6, 2026 | Updated: November 6, 2026 6 minutes read

A rider in a black and white suit riding a white sports bike

A rider on a white sports bike. Illustrative image, not from the 2005 season finale. Photo: Byron Sullivan / Pexels

Marco Melandri beat Nicky Hayden by 0.097 seconds at Valencia 21 years ago today, on November 6, 2005, in the last race of a MotoGP season whose champion had already been settled. Valentino Rossi, who clinched his fifth straight premier-class title at Sepang six weeks earlier, started 15th after a qualifying crash and still finished third. The 2005 Valencia MotoGP finale was a race with nothing on the line for the title, and it still produced one of the closest finishes of the year.

A title already decided, a runner-up fight still open

Rossi wrapped up the 2005 championship at the Malaysian Grand Prix on September 25, finishing second to Loris Capirossi while his only remaining challenger, Max Biaggi, ended up sixth. It was his fifth consecutive premier-class crown (one in 500cc and four in MotoGP) and his seventh world title overall, according to Crash.net’s race report.

That left second place in the standings as the live fight, and it was between two Hondas. Melandri arrived having won in Turkey the race before. He had climbed from 15th in the 2003 standings and 12th in 2004, and another win would secure second place in the championship. Hayden, the Repsol Honda rider, was chasing his best season yet after finishing fifth and eighth in his first two years in the class.

What happened at Valencia

Fact	Detail
Date	Sunday, November 6, 2005
Event	Valencian Community Grand Prix, final round of the 2005 MotoGP season
Circuit	Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Valencia, Spain
MotoGP pole	Sete Gibernau (1:31.874)
Winner	Marco Melandri, Movistar Honda (46:58.152)
Margin	0.097s over Nicky Hayden, Repsol Honda
Third	Valentino Rossi, Yamaha, from 15th on the grid (+2.959s)
Attendance	124,520, reported as a sell-out

2005 Valencian Community Grand Prix, MotoGP class. Sources: Crash.net race report; Wikipedia race entry; Road Racing World.

Gibernau took pole for the fifth time that season, but his race was over within a few laps with an engine failure. Melandri led from the first corner and Hayden stayed on his tail for the whole 30 laps, on a circuit where overtaking is hard. Melandri opened a small gap, then had a bobble before the final corner that let Hayden close right up. Hayden went for the pass on the exit, and Melandri held his line to take the win. Melandri said afterward it was “a dream come true,” per Road Racing World.

Rossi’s day was the other story. He fell at high speed in qualifying and started 15th, his lowest grid slot since Qatar 2004. He was up five places at the first corner and eighth by the end of lap one, then moved into third on lap six. He could not close the gap to the two Hondas in the closing laps, but going from 15th on the grid to the podium in 30 laps said plenty about the season he had just had. The finish also meant he did not equal Mick Doohan’s record of 12 wins in a season, according to Crash.net. He ended the year with 367 points to Melandri’s 220 and Hayden’s 206.

The 250cc podium that outlived the day

The best clue to why Valencia 2005 is worth remembering sat one class down. Dani Pedrosa won the 250cc race from pole, in what turned out to be his final 250cc Grand Prix. Jorge Lorenzo was second, 3.448 seconds back, and Casey Stoner was third. Three riders on one podium went on to define the next decade of the premier class in very different ways.

Stoner won the MotoGP title in 2007 with Ducati and again in 2011 with Honda.
Lorenzo won three premier-class titles, in 2010, 2012 and 2015.
Pedrosa took 31 MotoGP wins and finished runner-up in 2007, 2010 and 2012, but never won the premier-class crown.

A rider in racing leathers leans a sport bike deep into a corner on a track — Illustrative image of a rider at lean, not from the 2005 Valencia Grand Prix. Photo: vikram sundaramoorthy / Pexels

The 125cc race that afternoon had its own future name. Marco Simoncelli finished fifth on an Aprilia, behind winner Mika Kallio. Simoncelli would go on to win the 250cc title in 2008 and move up to MotoGP, where his career ended at Sepang six years later. We told that story in our Simoncelli at Sepang piece.

Why it mattered, and what came next

The most direct consequence came a year later. Hayden won the 2006 MotoGP title in the final round at the same circuit, finishing third in the Valencian Community Grand Prix and beating Rossi by five points, as Wikipedia’s Hayden entry records. He had finished 2005 third in the standings with 206 points, 14 behind Melandri, and had just lost the finale by a hair. It is fair to read that defeat as a rehearsal. Analysis: Hayden learned that he could run with the best Honda in the field at a track that punishes mistakes, and he used that confidence the following November.

It was also a Honda one-two on a day when the champion was a Yamaha rider who had qualified 15th. Carlos Checa’s Ducati was fourth and Alex Barros’s Honda fifth, a reminder of how closely matched the front of the 2005 field was once Rossi’s title was out of the way.

A black and white checkered racing helmet resting indoors — A checkered racing helmet. Illustrative image, not from Valencia 2005. Photo: Matheus Triaquim / Pexels

Valencia is still where MotoGP settles things. Backfire’s current schedule coverage lists the 2026 season finale there on November 29, and this weekend’s Qatar round is the first at which Marc Márquez can clinch the championship, as laid out in our Márquez match-point preview. If it goes the distance, it will be at the circuit where Hayden chased Melandri to the line in 2005 and won his own title a year later.