Factory Yamaha's Ben Spies lost today's Valencia MotoGP season finale by just 0.015s to new champion Casey Stoner and said that despite trying to make the Australian use as much track as possible, he just had the edge on grunt out of the last corner and won by the smallest margin in the 800cc era.

Spies had gambled on hard tyres front and rear which paid off as the track stayed dry and he was able to pass Stoner when the Repsol Honda man made a mistake with three laps to go. Texan Spies held him off but the Aussie took some risks in the final corners and just had the extra drive to win.

"We knew if there was a dry line the hard tyre is what I like, the grip level doesn't change too much, just the feeling, it's a little bit stiffer and it's what I prefer. The only way we would run a soft front was if was for 10 laps and there was a bike swap," said Spies, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

"I was banking on a dry race and that's what happened. I was making up the time on the front tyre but we needed more acceleration for the race, we need a little bit less wheelie but everything else was good. I could hear Casey going into the last corner so all I did was try to get the best run I could and slowly made my way over the track.

"I didn't do anything dangerous, just make him use as much real estate as I could. Casey just had a little bit more motor than us."