2010 Grand Prix Motorcycle Racing Season

The 2010 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season was the 62nd F.I.M. Road Racing World Championship season. It was the first season for the new Moto2 class.

Jorge Lorenzo was crowned MotoGP World Champion for the first time, after he finished third in the Malaysian Grand Prix on 10 October. Finishing on the podium in 16 of the 18 races – including nine victories – to be held during the season, Lorenzo amassed a record points total for the premier class, achieving a total of 383 points, ten more than the previous best score achieved by Valentino Rossi in 2008. Second in the championship was Dani Pedrosa, 138 points behind Lorenzo, recording four race victories over the course of the season. He and third-placed Rossi both missed at least three races due to injuries suffered during race weekends; Pedrosa suffered a fractured collarbone at Motegi, while Rossi suffered a broken leg at Mugello, resulting in the first missed races of his entire Grand Prix career. The only other rider to win races during the season was Casey Stoner, who finished fourth in the championship. Stoner won three races in the latter half of the season, winning the inaugural race in Aragón, as well as the races at Motegi and his home race at Phillip Island.

Nine different riders won races in the secondary Moto2 championship, and former MotoGP rider Toni Elías claimed the inaugural championship title, with three events to spare as his seven victories had taken him out of reach of his rivals. Second place went to Julián Simón, who despite not winning a race, finished on the podium eight times. Third place in the championship went to Andrea Iannone, who achieved three victories but lost out on runner-up in the championship to Simón by just two points. The season was also tinged with tragedy as the inaugural race winner in the class, Shoya Tomizawa, died of injuries suffered in an accident at Misano; the first on-track fatality at Grand Prix level since Daijiro Kato was killed in the senior class at Suzuka in 2003. Other riders to win races were Jules Cluzel, Yuki Takahashi, Roberto Rolfo, Alex de Angelis, Stefan Bradl and Karel Abraham.

Spanish riders once again dominated the 125cc championship, with a 26-race winning streak for Spanish riders only being broken by Bradley Smith at the final race of the season in Valencia. The top three championship placings went to Spanish riders as Marc Márquez won the championship ahead of Nicolás Terol and Pol Espargaró. With ten victories, Márquez became the second youngest World Champion ever at the age of 700117000000000000017 years, 7002263000000000000263 days, with only Loris Capirossi's 1990 triumph coming at a younger age. Smith was best non-Spanish rider, in fourth place.

Read more about 2010 Grand Prix Motorcycle Racing Season:  Rule Changes, Moto2 Introduction, Grands Prix

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