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MotoGP Star of the Year vote - 1st: Maverick Vinales

Average score out of ten: 8.8
Team: Suzuki Ecstar
Bike: GSX-RR
Wins: 1
Podiums: 4
Poles: 0

Fastest Laps: 2
Championship points: 202
Championship position: 4th out of 27

Maverick Vinales rocketed into MotoGP alien territory this season - and you voted the Spanish youngster as Star of the Year!

After a solid rookie season with the returning Suzuki team, Vinales and the improving GSX-RR made their ambitions known by leading the Phillip Island pre-season test.

Vinales fell while in pursuit of a debut MotoGP rostrum at round two in Argentina, but typically didn't make the same mistake twice and scored in every other race.

Indeed, in a season with a record number of accidents, 21-year-old Vinales was the only premier-class rider to make less mistakes than last year - falling just five times during GP weekends, compared with eight in his rookie season.

The inevitable first rostrum came at Le Mans and, after the GSX-RR struggled in the mid-season rain, Vinales romped to victory at Silverstone in September. It was Suzuki's first MotoGP win since 2007, but first in the dry since the start of the four-stroke era in 2002.

Unfortunately for Suzuki, Vinales had already decided to accept Yamaha's offer to replace Jorge Lorenzo in 2017. Nevertheless, they were able to celebrate two more podiums together and an excellent fourth in the final world championship standings.

Vinales - who also claimed five front-row starts - scored more than twice the points of team-mate Aleix Espargaro, who had put the Suzuki on pole in 2015.

In a further sign of his talent, Vinales was instantly fast on his Yamaha debut, leading the Valencia post-season test. Few will be surprised if he fights for the world title in 2017...

About the vote:
Rather than repeat the riders' championship standings, Crash.net's MotoGP Star of the Year poll (which began in 2008) expects viewers to take into account factors such as machinery, performance relative to a team-mate, riding style, experience, injuries, progress and personality as much as race results.

Over 70,000 votes were cast for the 2016 poll, with viewers awarding each of this year's participants with a mark out of ten. The average score for each rider was then used to compile the final results. 

Zdroj: crash.net