the following race at Welkom, Aprilia's Marco Melandri took his second career 250cc win. Fonsi Nieto then took his first ever race win in the Spanish Grand Prix. Nieto also took the lead in the championship standings from de Puniet and Franco Battaini. Nieto then won the following race at Le Mans before Melandri won the next three races and overtook the championship lead from Nieto after the Dutch TT. Melandri continued his streak to six consecutive wins and extended his lead in the standings to 37 points after the Czech Republic Grand Prix. Nieto won the Portuguese Grand Prix for Aprilia's tenth consecutive victory. Nieto, who crashed in lap 13, recovered from seventh position to win the rain-soaked race over Melandri. Aprilia's winning streak was broken when Yamaha's Sebastián Porto won the Rio de Janeiro Grand Prix under wet race condition. Rookie Toni Elías won the following race at Motegi after a last-lap battle with Melandri. Melandri finished second and increase his lead over Nieto in the championship standings to 52 points. With 52 points lead and three races to go, Melandri only need to finish in front of Nieto in the Malaysian Grand Prix to clinch the championship. However, he suffered a mechanical failure on the first lap, while Nieto won the race to reduce the gap to 27 points. Melandri finally clinched the 250cc title in the Australian Grand Prix with a close win over Nieto. They fought until the last lap and Melandri won the race with just 0.007 second gap at the finish line. Melandri became the youngest 250cc world champion at the age of 20 years and 74 days. Melandri ended the season with 298 points from nine race wins, three second-place finishes and one fourth-place finish. Nieto finished second in the standings with 241 points and four wins, followed Honda's Roberto Rolfo and rookie Toni Elías with 219 and 178 points respectively. Elías, who recorded one race win and four further podium finishes, was named as the Rookie of the Year. Aprilia won the constructors championship with 382 points and 14 race wins from Melandri, Nieto and Elías. Honda finished second in the standings with 244 points but failed to record any race win. Yamaha, who won two races courtesy of Miyazaki and Porto's wins in the wet, finished third with 211 points. 125cc class The 125cc entry list was headlined by defending