The Paella Award
Spain’s national dish, Paella, is said to originate from Valencia. Legend has it that a local peasant farmer had been sent out by his wife to buy some smoked donkey slices for tea but instead spent nearly all the cash on cheap beer and dominos – leaving him with just enough for a small bag of shitty rice. Fearing an ear-bending of biblical proportions the poor farmer sneaked home and cooked the rice with anything dead he could find around his shack insisting to his spouse that he ‘cooked her a special supper’.
The dish was a total success! It didn’t taste very good but it gave his moaning wife a fatal batch of dysentery that shut her up long enough for him to push her down the stairs to ensure the job was done correctly.
However it wasn’t until many years later that Spain realised that paella could not only be used to poison moaning spouses but annoy British tourists too! Enter the ‘festival paella’ – a huge paella dish where all the most rancid meat is tossed into a lukewarm pan scientifically set at the correct temperature to breed gastrointestinal bacteria.
It’s a win-win. The Spanish charge the Brits a stupid price to eat cold rice, foul protein and any sweeping-ups to hand as ‘thanks’ for ruining their towns with their drunken behaviour.
This award goes to the rider who was paid too much yet left a bitter taste in our mouths.
Winner: Jorge Martin
Jorge ‘Mr Glass’ Martin’s 2025 title defence has probably been the worst in living memory. Very few people remember what the Spaniard’s latest injury was but apparently it was now better and Jorge was returning for the last round – just in time to get re-re-re-re-injured at the following crucial Valencia test.
The return, predictably, was actually a con. Martin forced himself away from Netflix just so he could complete his long-lap penalty awarded to him about 5 months ago for something that we can’t remember…but he must have injured himself in doing so.
The ex-champion did the bare minimum all weekend then returned to the pits after completing his penalty to not watch his teammate win.
The Failed Formula 1 Track Award
The F1 Circuit Urbex Valencia, once heralded as Europe’s glittering new temple of speed, now squats on the outskirts of town like a Formula 1 fan’s midlife crisis made of concrete and broken dreams. It was meant to be Bernie Ecclestone’s shiny Valencian money-pit that would help fund his daughter’s latest gold-plated bathroom but after just five races the matt-finish gloss of racing around a decaying odorous shipyard wasn’t quite the adrenaline rush they’d promised.
Fortunately, tourists can still freely wander around the graffiti covered pitlane to witness firsthand why Spain quietly swept this €300 million embarrassment under the rug next to the rest of its abandoned airports and ghost cities.
This award goes to the rider who started out promising glamour and ended in a pile of ruins.
Winner: Pecco Bagnaia
Bagnaia’s very first laps of Valencia in FP1 saw the beard-shod Italian go top of the timesheets! Horrah! Since Japan the only sheet Pecco’s regularly topped was the ‘rider most laughed at’ list issued each weekend by Paul Denning. But were we getting the GP-24 Bagnaia to finish the season?
No, of course we weren’t.
Instead we got the Bagnaia that failed to get into Q1, went backwards in the sprint race and fell off (thanks to a pissed-up Frenchman) in the main race.
This impressive zero-point tally saw one final boot in Pecco’s beard as Pedro Acosta, riding the soon to be repossessed KTM, move ahead of him into fourth in the final championship standings.
The Las Fallas Award
Las Fallas in Valencia is basically the world’s most extravagant passive-aggressive neighbourhood punch-up disguised as an art festival. Instead of working the EU funded locals pour obscene amounts of money into building gigantic cartoon statues of politicians, celebrities, local busybodies, and anyone who’s ever parked badly.
Then, on the night of March 19th, after five straight days of waking up the dead with ear-bleeding firecrackers at 8 a.m. every morning “because tradition,” the Valencians set everything on fire and watch the entire lot burn up in flames…along with a worrying amount of house curtains from locals who forgot to close their windows.
This award goes to the rider who was on fire.
Winner: Raul Fernadez
Resting Bitch Face Raul must have been almost smiling through his punctured-gizzard features after his extraordinary Valencia weekend.
Fernadez finished top Aprilia and fourth in the sprint race and then an impressive second in the main race. More remarkable was that Raul genuinely looked to have the pace to win but was thwarted by a poor first lap. All this while his once rated teammate fell off…again.
Indeed it was a successful weekend for the Fernadez family as Raul’s younger brother Adrian, who shares the same face as Raul for cost-cutting measures, was victorious in the Moto3 race…all without breaking anyone’s leg this time.
The La Tomatina Award
La Tomatina is the one day a year when the otherwise perfectly civilized town of Buñol, near Valencia, collectively loses its marbles allowing 50,000 halfwits to pay top euro to stand in a Spanish square and pelt strangers with tomatoes for an hour. Then, at the stroke of noon, the tomatoes magically stop flying, and everyone staggers out looking like they just survived a snuff movie directed by Heinz.
It’s also, interestingly, probably the only riot where the participants get blasted with water cannons and then tip them for the experience.
This award goes to the rider who ended up a mess
Winner: Johann Zarco
Last season Johann Zarco was MGPNews’ rider of the year having had zero crashes that were his own fault. Yet this year the beret-owning Honda rider couldn’t stay rubber-side-down.
However it was a none-falling crash that saw Johann end his year with a 2026 long lap penalty. Having swigged a few too many Cabernet Sauvignons beforehand Zarco’s opening laps of the main event saw him lack the necessary depth perception for a clean race…which ended with Bagnaia crashing into the gravel.
Johann’s explanation of the incident was very complex:
“I swerved to avoid a rider who had moved to avoid another rider that had braked early due to another rider missing the apex because another rider had dribbled wee down his leg a bit.”
However most just saw it as:
Zarco lost control and smashed Bagnaia into the gravel…who was happy to finish the season so fell off once stationary.
The Holy Grail Award
The Holy Grail is elusive cup Jesus supposedly swigged from when he fell out with his mates at the Last Supper. Most of us who aren’t God bothers, however, only really know it from that Indiana Jones movie…although we’re not sure which one.
For centuries every conspiracy theorist has been chasing the Holy Grail only for Valencia to enter the group chat announcing “Oh this old thing? Yeah, we’ve just had it chilling in the cathedral since roughly forever.”
So is it? Of course not. But that certainly hasn’t stopped Valencia’s tourist board printing “I saw the Real Holy Grail and all I got was this overpriced souvenir” t-shirts.
This award goes to the rider that completed the Italian Holy Grail in front of that massive ‘slight naff’ painting of the Lord Rossi.
Winner: Marco Bezzecchi
Bez finished his impressive year with a win and thus achieved seasonal full marks from Italy due to him:
- Restoring the VR46 Neverland Ranch legacy
- Injuring Marc Marquez enough to stop him winning
- Making us forget about Bagnaia
The Franco Morbidelli Award
Morbidelli has had, even by his own fantastically lofty standards, a stella season. Classic Franky has crashed, rammed off, blocked and generally being a danger to every single rider on the track throughout the year with his daredevil brain-free antics.
This award goes to the rider who most embodied Morbidelli’s mindset.
Winner: Franco Morbidelli
Only our favourite Italian-Brazilian hybrid could manage to crash a £700k MotoGP machine whilst pottering up to the grid stuck in his own mysterious mind. Luckily for Morbidelli he hit his hated enemy Aleix Espargaró and broke a bit off his Honda. Not so luckily for Morbidelli though was he hit his hand on the floor and broke a bit off his finger.
