With the final Grand Prix of this incredible 2020 season of the FIM Motocross World Championship settled, it was time to celebrate the amazing achievements of the paddock with the annual MXGP Awards.
The MXGP Awards is a prize giving ceremony, designed to celebrate the accomplishments from this season in the MXGP paddock. The awards were hosted by the voice of MXGP-TV Commentator Paul Malin and MXGP-TV Presenter, Lisa Leyland from the studio in Pietramurata and it was live streamed worldwide on www.MXGP-TV.com and on MXGP’s official Facebook page.
The awards ceremony was a little different this year, in respect with the COVID-19 rules, though that did not stop the fun, as we celebrated one of the hardest, yet most exciting seasons of the FIM Motocross World Championship, to date.
The evening kicked-off with a special message from Infront Moto Racing’s CEO David Luongo and FIM President Jorge Viegas who shared a few words about the incredible season of the FIM Motocross World Championship.
David Luongo, Infront Moto Racing CEO: “Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you a good evening. It was crazy for everybody. Starting from March when the Covid-19 pandemic exploded to the world and we had to stop the season and then it has been a sprint to restart the season and be coordinated to be able to make it happen. After many efforts, we re-started in Latvia. We were in new format with triple header races and now, we are here in Trentino, we had a fantastic World Championship with Tim Gajser and Tom Vialle that really deserved the title and we had also the Championship that finished in European and the Women classes, so I think the works has been done and I’m really proud of all, the MXGP family, the media, the riders, all staff. Motocross represent more that 2000 jobs world-wide during the season. So, it is very important to maintain those jobs and this was our main mission this year. We can be proud that we achieved together, and I also want to thanks the FIM President Mr Jorge Viegas because during all these months, we were keep on making the Championship happen together. It is done. We will have a nice wintertime and we already start thinking about racing next year. I also had special feeling for some riders this year Gautier Paulin, Clement Desalle, Tanel Leok who were also with us for many years, they had fantastic achievements career and also we have new younger riders coming. I cannot wait for the next year. So, thank you very much. I hope you will enjoy this evening”.
Jorge Viegas, FIM President: “Thank you for this opportunity. I’m very proud of Infront Moto Racing, my colleagues in the FIM, and above all, I am proud of all the volunteers, the clubs, the national federations that made this amazing FIM Motocross World Championship possible. We thought, we could not do it and then we started, as David said, we had a lot of help from people all over Europe and we could finalize this amazing World Championship Calendar. This is part of the popular discipline we still have, at this moment, we are still running the Enduro and the MotoGP and only this weekend we had 4 World Championship races from different disciplines, so we are showing to the world that sport can be done with all the care and all the rules that we have introduced, to prevent the virus. But we had the guts to go ahead. We motorcyclist, we are strong because we are united, and we are good family. Thank you again”.
The Awards ceremony then continued, as the winning teams and manufacturers were presented with their awards, followed by this year’s champions in the MXGP, MX2, WMX and EMX classes, who each received their prizes. EMX125 Presented by FMF Racing Champion, Andrea Bonacorsi, was the first to take to the studio, followed by a special video message from this year’s EMX250 Champion, Thibault Benistant and then of course the EMX2t Presented by FMF Racing, EMX Open and Women’s Motocross World Championship winners, Brad Anderson, Karel Kutsar and Courtney Duncan, who also celebrated their championship wins this season.
This year, Maxime Renaux was the recipient of the Jan de Groot Award that honours the most promising young talent, for his impressive achievements this season, as he placed third overall in the MX2 World Championship.
Additionally, World Champions, Tim Gajser and Tom Vialle were both presented as the winners of the Tag Heuer Fastest Lap competition in 2020, receiving a fine-looking Tag Heuer watch as the prize for the most ‘best laps’ set during this year’s races.
Then Tom Vialle and Jorge Prado were presented with the Fox Holeshot Award, for their incredible starts this season, that saw Prado claim 16 Fox Holeshots and Vialle an impressive 21. For Prado, this was his third consecutive Fox Holeshot Award, while for Vialle it was his first.
The evening then concluded with the awards for the two FIM Motocross World Champions, Tim Gajser and Tom Vialle, who each received their championship plaques, along with two fine Tag Heuer watches, as part of their prizes for this season.
Here is the complete list of winners, below:
MXGP Manufacturer World Champion: KTM
MXGP Winning Team: Team HRC
MX2 Manufacturer World Champion: Yamaha
MX2 Winning Team: Red Bull KTM Factory Racing
WMX Manufacturer World Champion: Yamaha
WMX Winning Team: DRT Kawasaki
“Jan De Groot” Award (cheque €5.000): Maxime Renaux
EMX 125 European Champion: Andrea Bonacorsi
EMX 250 European Champion: Thibault Benistant
EMX 2T European Champion: Brad Anderson
EMX Open European Champion: Karel Kutsar
MXGP Best Cooperation: Spain
Women’s World Champion: Courtney Duncan
TAG HEUER Best Lap Challenge – MXGP & MX2: Tim Gajser & Tom Vialle
FOX HOLESHOT Award MXGP and MX2: Jorge Prado & Tom Vialle
MXGP Best Organizer: Latvia
MX2 World Champion: Tom Vialle
MXGP World Champion: Tim Gajser
