The MotoGP News 2006 Awards

The MotoGP News 2006 Awards
The good, the bad and the Kurtis
(05/01/2007)



MGPN is proud to give you the 2006 awards – the only MotoGP honours voted entirely by the public (i.e. we couldn't manage to get any bribes).


Best Rider

Valentino Rossi
43%
Loris Capirossi
23%
Troy Bayliss
14%

He didn't win the championship but you still reckon he's the best. And why not? After being rammed off by the chorizo of Toni Elias in the opening race Rossi had some hideous luck that saw him 51 points down with five rounds remaining. Despite cracking like cheap plasterboard at Valencia the fight back was until then outstanding.

Little leaking Loris was another Italian who could have won the title if luck had gone his way. But luck didn't go his way - what in fact went his way was a long haired team-mate at Catalunya leaving his bones and champion in pieces.


Worst rider

James Ellison
36%
Jose Cardoso
23%
Makoto Tamada
14%

Poor Neanderthal James Ellison was supposed to be the UK's answer to Valentino Rossi. He had the looks, the hair but sadly not the speed. Ellison's averagely rated team-mate, Carlos Checa, comprehensively out paced him at every given opportunity and condemned him to life in the States. Shame.


Most overrated rider

Nicky Hadyen
34%
Casey Stoner
18%
Sete Gibernau
14%

It's the first award of the day for young Nicky Hayden. The fact he won the world championship just doesn't sit right with you all - is this because of his dull 'points finish' attitude? Who knows, but you don't reckon him which is fine by us.
Gravel-friendly Stoner deserves a mention with a fair slice of you being less than impressed with his crashing antics.


Clown of the yearr

Sete Gibernau
31%
Casey Stoner
20%
Danni Pedrosa
13%

Surely there could only ever be one winner? Sete is the clown of our hearts and will be sorely missed in MotoGP. His 2006 highlights included being involved in an ambulance crash on the way to the hospital, having incorrect surgery on his broken collarbone and being knocked off and out for the rest of the season by the rider who's taking his seat at Ducati. Sete - we salute you.
But every cloud has a silvery scuffed lining - and as the master retires his apprentice Stoner get set to take over…


Rookie of the year

Danni Pedrosa
60%
Chris Vermeulen
30%
Casey Stoner
8%

With Vermeulen and Pedrosa dominating the votes it was the chirpy Spaniard who won your hearts. A totally dominating win at Donington and a brilliantly no-brain spill at Estoril are just two highlights of Danni's dazzling rookie season.


Worst rookie of the year

Jose Cardoso
64%
Randy de Puniet
21%
Casy Stoner
10%

Jose Cardoso was never hired by d'Antin for his riding skills as his wallet skills were deemed far more important. He tried his best but just wasn't fast enough.


Biggest poof

Sete Gibernau
24%
James Ellison
13%
Randy de Puniet
11%

It's the second award of the day for the ever popular Sete Gibernau. His girly haircut, sulking and the fact he missed half the season through injury meant you didn't think he was man enough for MotoGP. Harsh but understandable.


Best bike

Honda
62%
Ducati
26%
Team KR
5%

Winning over 14 times more votes than their bitter rivals at Yamaha means that for 2006 HRC really did come good after two seasons of being beaten. A brilliant, yet thoroughly evil bike and a deserved winner.
Ducati's second place is an excellent result for a bike built out of scaffolding pipes and assembled on a cobbled street next to a guy roasting pork for a living. Their team spirit is unbeatable.


Worst nail

Ilmor
33%
Kawasaki
29%
Suzuki
24%

It was an incredibility close battle for the winner between Kawasaki, Suzuki and Ilmor - and that's a statement seldom ever used. In the end though it was the new boys at Ilmor who shone through like a matt-black turd after their off-the-pace races in the final two rounds.
Initially they blamed the fact they were beaten by Ellison on only having 800cc…unfortunately this claim was made to look dafter than Gobert in party frock two days later when all the other teams rolled out their 800's lapped as fast as the 990's.


Most punchable rider

Nicky Hadyen
34%
Danni Pedrosa
25%
Sete Gibernau
21%

In the good old days Maxine Biaggi would win this vote by a mile. You lot were lining up to have a crack at punching his beard in. Sadly the sulking wig-host was kicked out of MotoGP leaving you all with mixed views to who you'd like to boot. Amazingly every single rider got at least one vote but in the end you plumped for a simple, uneducated beating to be issued to Nicky Hayden. Man, you really don't like the guy do you?


Biggest Surprise

Kenny Roberts Jnr
25%
Toni Elias
15%
Troy Bayliss
15%

Nobody ever saw this coming. Take one overweight, lacklustre rider and for 2006 drop him in a team noted for being laughably rubbish. What do you get? An amazing father and son combo. That's right Kenny McRoberts Junior did the unbelievable and actually over performed on his dad's KR machine. More amazing yet Junior would have surely won the Portuguese race if he could have counted. A worthy winner.


Biggest Disappointment

Colin Edwards
18%
Makoto Tamada
14%
Casey Stoner
13%

Poor Colin had a stinker of a season. His one chance came at Assen when, with half the decent riders in hospital, he led a charging Hayden into the final chicane on the final lap. Both of them overcooked the bend. Hayden chose to run wide through the gravel. Edwards chose fire his bike into the scenery and slide down the rumble strip on his back. Hayden became champ, Edwards the chump.


Top non-rider you'd like to see attacked by osprey

Uccio
52%
Earl Hayden
25%
Mick Doohan
11%

Overweight. A hanger on. A waste of a paddock pass. No not Junior in 2005 but Rossi's special friend Uccio. It seems totally improbably that there could be a more pointless person in the entire MotoGP community - Nieto included.


Best track

Phillip Island
39%
Mugello
21%
Laguna Seca
10%

Winning the title for the third year running is the amazing Phillip Island. Seagulls, bent pieces of wood being wanged around and drunken louts with mullets do nothing to alter your view of this outstandingly scenic circuit. Brilliant.


Worst track

Qatar
27%
Shanghai
18%
Assen
8%

You've voted the Qatar desert race as the worst event every season. It's not hard to see why a track covered in sand, in the middle of a red hot desert located in the Middle-East is so unpopular. The riders, the teams and the fans hate the place…but a huge sack of oil-stained cash on Dorna's doorstep means it stays.
Good to see the go-kart track at Shanghai giving Qatar a run for its oily money.


Funniest moment

Dani vs Nicky
54%

You lot don't like Hayden so nothing could ever amuse you more than the farm-monkey being rammed off. Step forward (and maybe into view) Pedrosa.
Poor Hayden never saw him or even his bike coming. A flustered passing attempt by Thumbelina left the pairing playing rollover on the sandy Portugal beach. Hadyen's air-punching and foul mouthed retaliation just improved the spectacle.


Best crash

Cataluyna Carnage
38%
Pedrosa at Estoril
18%
Stoner at Mugello
13%

Possibly the most spectacular crash ever in MotoGP. Amazingly everyone raced again. Even more amazingly Stoner wasn't involved.


Hardest rider

Loris Capirossi
34%
Marco Melandri
27%
John Hopkins
8%

After the hideous pile-up at Cataluyna both Loris Capirossi and Marco Melandri did the unbelievable and were loaded back onto their bikes and back into action within days. Both winners but it was Capirossi who earned the most votes.


Randys big rider big up

Nicky Hayden
56%
Kenny Roberts Jrn
16%
John Hopkins
14%

Young Nicky Hayden was number two's number one choice for surely.


Ugliest rider

Garry McCoy
29%
Kenny Roberts Jnr
13%
Nicky Hayden
8%

MotoGP is brilliant. It can give a short ugly man his pick of amazing women. So we should not feel sorry for them but instead rejoice in their fortune.
Bottom of the pile, in amongst the fungi covered spewage, is the one and only humanzee Garry McCoy. What the little Aussie lacked in pace he more than made up for in buckled looks. Horrah!


Dreamboat

Nicky Hayden
22%
Valentino Rossi
20%
Chris Vermuelen
10%

Everyone knows that if you look good in MotoGP you're a PR dream and bound to stand out amongst the other generally hideous looking MotoGP riders. It didn't used to be like this, thankfully for Ron Haslam, but commerce and the 'sell factor' rule the roost in the 21st century.
Nicky Hayden is the new man's man proving once again that looking good is far better than being educated.


Worst haircut

Valentino Rossi
30%
Sete Gibernau
22%
Chris Vermuelen
13%

He may be a complete genius on the track but when it comes to sorting his haircut out Rossi's the proverbial James Ellison. It just looks stupid. Not stylishly stupid. Just stupid.



None motorcycling person you hate the most

George Bush
16%
Michael Schumcher
7%
Tony Blair
4%

George Bush. Need we say any more?