Esteve Rabat | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Rabat at the 2015 Catalan Grand Prix.
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Nationality | Spanish | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born |
Barcelona, Spain |
May 25, 1989 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Current team | EG 0,0 Marc VDS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bike number | 53 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Esteve "Tito" Rabat Bergada (born 25 May 1989 in Barcelona, Spain) is a Spanish motorcycle racer who currently competes in the MotoGP class in the Motorcycle World championship. He started racing professionally in 2005, and made his Grand Prix début at that season's Valencian Grand Prix. He is best known for winning the 2014 Moto2 World Championship with a record points total for the intermediate class.
Rabat's breakthrough year came during the 2013 season. After finishing ninth in the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix, Rabat recorded a second-place finish at the Grand Prix of the Americas; after five previous third places, it was Rabat's best result in Grand Prix racing at the time. The following race, Rabat achieved his first pole position in the Spanish Grand Prix, outpacing all of his rivals by over four tenths of a second. In the race, Rabat led from start to finish, winning by over four seconds from Scott Redding. He added victories later in the season, at the Indianapolis and Malaysian Grands Prix.
For the 2014 Moto2 season Rabat moved to the Marc VDS team, and won the season opening race at Qatar ahead of his new teammate Mika Kallio. Over the course of the season he would take a further 6 wins and 7 podiums, only missing the podium in 4 races for a total of 346 points. After finishing third at the Malaysian Grand Prix, he was crowned World Champion, the first for the Marc VDS team, ahead of Kallio.
Remaining in Moto2, Rabat attempted to become the first rider since Jorge Lorenzo to retain the intermediate class championship. Rabat did not win a race until Mugello at the end of May. Wins in Aragon and Valencia were not enough for Rabat to retain his title, as he ultimately finished third behind Johann Zarco and Álex Rins.