Just before Christmas we asked you to vote in our
MotoGP Rider of the Decade poll, by awarding each of the ten shortlisted riders with a mark out of ten.
The shortlist contained all of the 500cc/MotoGP world champions since 2000 -
Kenny Roberts Jr, Valentino Rossi, Nicky Hayden,
Casey Stoner and
Jorge Lorenzo - plus the four other riders that had finished title runner-up at least once in that time (Max Biaggi, Sete Gibernau,
Marco Melandri and Dani Pedrosa).
The final place in the top ten was given to the rider, not yet included, who had achieved the most race wins - Loris Capirossi. Capirossi has taken eight victories during the period in question, more than some of the riders listed above.
Over 25,000 votes were cast for the
MotoGP poll - and now it's time to reveal the results.
With seven world championships for two different manufacturers since 2000 it was a foregone conclusion that
Valentino Rossi would win the poll, and his score of 9.44 out of 10 made him the undisputed winner.
Second and third places were closer, with Ducati's 2008 world champion Stoner getting the edge over Yamaha's 2010 title winner Lorenzo thanks to marks of 7.643 and 7.276 respectively.
Perhaps surprisingly,
Dani Pedrosa emerged as the highest ranked rider not to win the world title, with his score of 6.636 placing the Spaniard above former factory Honda team-mate Nicky Hayden.
Hayden fractionally outscored Max Biaggi, Rossi's arch-rival early in his premier-class career, with
Sete Gibernau - who took over as The Doctor's strongest opponent in 2003 and 2004 - in seventh place.
Capirossi, a race winner for Ducati on both 990 and 800cc machinery during the period in question, was ranked eighth, with Suzuki's most recent world champion Roberts Jr ninth and
Marco Melandri tenth.
The full Rider of the Decade results are shown below, with the average mark out of ten in brackets...
1.
Valentino Rossi (9.44)
2.
Casey Stoner (7.643)
3.
Jorge Lorenzo (7.276)
4.
Dani Pedrosa (6.636)
5.
Nicky Hayden (6.041)
6.
Max Biaggi (5.991)
7.
Sete Gibernau (5.746)
8.
Loris Capirossi (5.706)
9.
Kenny Roberts Jr (5.341)
10.
Marco Melandri (4.976)