Is Sam Sunderland your 2017 MCN Man of the Year?

After another epic season of racing, MCN’s sports team of Michael Guy (Sports Editor), Simon Patterson (MotoGP reporter) and Oli Rushby (Superbike reporter) sat down to discuss who impressed them the most in each race series we cover – and to whittle down a shortlist of exactly who was the most impressive racers of the season.

With that in mind, we’ve came up with a list of six – but we need your help to cut that down to award the 58^th running of our Man of the Year award!

Sam Sunderland

Sam Sunderland became the first British rider to win the incredibly tough Dakar Rally in 2017, with him and his Red Bull KTM squad keeping their heads in treacherous conditions while many of his opposition and their team losing theirs and suffering because of it.

The 2017 Dakar Rally was far from an easy one, with torrential rain, high winds and low temperatures leaving stages cancelled and routes washed away in front of the racers’ eyes, making Sunderland’s ultra-consistent campaign even more impressive as he managed to keep his cool all the way from Asunción to Buenos Aires.

It comes as the 28-year-old morphs himself into an all-round pro, matching his outright speed of the past several runnings of the race with a new consistency that meant that he was able to take the crown after three weeks’ racing. Even better, he showed that it was far from a flash in the pan all season long too, by contending for the FIM Cross Country world championship all season long as well.

To have your say on who should be the overall 2017 MCN Man of the Year, click here to vote.