The Rude Waiter Award
French waiters: arrogant pricks who treat you like a stain in their sacred dining hall. Wave for the bill and you get a glare that screams “Disappear, bastard.” They live to humiliate you while fleecing you for bread and a €12 bottle of water that tastes like it was filtered through a Gauloise. All this from a set of weaklings who’d run and hide behind their Édith Piaf collection at the first real sign of trouble. These are the same legends who surrendered faster than you can say “extra fries.”
This award goes to the rider whose weekend was awful from every perspective.
Winner: Marc Márquez
Oh how the mighty have fallen… and then fallen again. And then a few more times. At this rate he’ll need a season-long subscription to the orthopaedic ward.
Village bells tolled with delight all around Italy as it looks like the Spanish Antichrist’s season is all but over, thanks to yet another hideous crash that bent his foot off. After the crash, Marc begrudgingly confessed that one of the many self-tapping screws holding his arm on had come loose pre-season and was pressing against a nerve. Because apparently even his titanium bits are now filing for divorce.
So it’s double surgery in Madrid for Márquez Snr and a season that’s now over. Somewhere in a dark room, a Ducati engineer is quietly weeping with relief.
The Tiny Poodles Award
As if walking around Paris wasn’t bad enough with the filth on the pavements and the filthy French waiters, we also have to suffer every other Parisian carrying a yappy, spoilt handbag-rat fed on truffles and therapy while pretending it’s profound. Real dogs fetch big sticks; these neurotic pom-poms just judge your outfit, demand emotional support croissants, and crap into napkins like tiny, entitled Parisians themselves.
This award goes to the rider who thought he was a bulldog… but left yapping and feeling small.
Winner: Marco Bezzecchi
At the beginning of the season everything was falling into place for Bez, sweeter than Uccio’s breakfast cereal. He was on the fastest bike. Aprilia had built the bike around his needs. He’d already crippled his main rival last season. And his teammate was brittle, lacked any testing time and had already rage-quit the team so would prove no problem.
Wait… what was that last one again?
To Marco’s absolute horror, his teammate Jorge ‘Mr Glass’ Martin is rediscovering the form he lost (along with a majority of his joints) at the beginning of last season. Turns out the only thing more fragile than Martin’s body is Bezzecchi’s confidence.
The sprint race win for Jorge was bad for Bez. But the main race was a full Spanish kick in the ovaries. Despite Marco holding a sizable lead and Jorge being stuck in midfield, the fragile Spanish ex-champion simply wore down his bum-faced teammate to pass him with a few laps remaining — like a polite but relentless ghost haunting Bez’s rear tyre.
Afterwards Bez, who was once again sporting the ‘irritably annoyed’ face circa 2024, claimed that he never had the pace to win and that even coming second was beyond what he thought he could ever achieve in his wildest dreams. But then he would say that, wouldn’t he? And no one believed him. Not even his own mirror.
The Croissant Award
Croissants are awesome… yet somehow French. The history of these flaky delights amazingly stems all the way back to the Second World War! Legend has it that after resisting Hitler’s advancing forces for almost an entire minute, the brave French people were forced into having weekly baths by the evil Nazis. However, heroic Pierre and his onion-clad mates would smuggle bars of soap (brought in by the Krauts) out of the country in hollowed-out croissants, allowing all locals to continue stinking gloriously of a rotting carcass soaked in urine. *Liberté, égalité, odeur.*
This award goes to something that should be bad because it’s French, but actually isn’t.
Winner: Fabio Quartararararararro
After months of sulking and telling us how bad the Yamaha is (a bike so slow it gets overtaken by the safety car), Fabio showed up at Le Mans and put in a great effort in both races while the other Yamaha riders floundered around at the back like drunks trying to find the exit.
The Pecco Bagnaia Award
Who knows what you’ll get with Pecco. False dawns. Bad performances. And the slight glimmer of hope that dies faster than a French waiter’s personality.
This award goes to the rider who was most like Pecco Bagnaia.
Winner: Pecco Bagnaia
The alcohol-swilling Italian nearly always makes this list with his zany antics focused at the back of the field. But in France things were different. Very different — and because of that it ends up being the same. Pecco, who is ‘just friends’ with his sister, qualified on pole and looked genuinely fast in the sprint race.
But we’ve been here before. And, like always, this new optimism ended up with him falling off and kicking a cone in a manner so graceful it almost looked rehearsed.
However, the real blessing for Bagnaia actually has nothing to do with his up-then-down performances. It’s the fact that he’s being booted out of Ducati… and is set to jump on the best bike on the grid! And if there’s one thing Pecco thrives on, it’s having a massive and unfair advantage over the rest of the field. The man could make a shopping trolley look like a championship winner.
2025 Louvre Heist Award
In October 2025 the Louvre managed to let four guys in high-vis vests roll up with a cherry picker, angle-grind their way into the Galerie d’Apollon like it was a Sunday DIY project. The crafty criminals casually wandered off with €88 million worth of Napoleonic bling in under eight minutes — while the museum was open and full of tourists. Security was apparently too busy shrugging and smoking to notice.
This award goes to the team who have, unbelievably, stolen everything while we stand around with our mouths open.
Winner: Aprilia
At first we couldn’t believe Aprilia had the best bike. Even when they were winning we still couldn’t believe it. Even now, knowing that Aprilia have the best bike, I still can’t actually believe it. It feels like discovering your local kebab shop has Michelin stars.
Remember when the Italians were the laughingstock team? Well, just like anyone watching Rosie Jones, no one is laughing now. Aprilia took all the podium places on Sunday and absolutely blitzed the old-guard Ducati. Great stuff. The rest of the grid is now officially riding museum pieces.
