MotoGP 2023 is under way and all eyes will be on the coming weeks and months to try and predict who will emerge on top and who will be left wanting. But, whatever happens, it is unlikely that any of the following records will be broken this season for a whole variety of reasons.
Of course, new records could be set, as happened last year when Francesco Bagnaia overcame a 91-point deficit to win the MotoGP title - the biggest points turnaround ever - while he was also the first rider to win the title after crashing out of races five times. Compared to the following list, however, these are insignificant records so sit back and revel in pure greatness.
10 Most Grand Prix Titles: Giacomo Agostini
There have been many great - and multiple - champions in motorcycle Grand Prix racing but the greatest of all time in terms of number of titles is Italian Giacomo Agostini. He burst onto the world scene in 1965 as teammate to Mike Hailwood in the MV Agusta team and won his first 350cc Grand Prix in only his second attempt, he missed out on the 350cc title by a mere handful of points.
He won his first 500cc Grand Prix also that year and would go on to completely dominate Grand Prix racing for the next 10 years, winning the 350cc title seven times and the 500cc title eight times. He won a total of 122 Grand Prix victories, itself a record, and he also won the last four-stroke 500cc world championship on an MV Agusta in 1975. In the 80s, he was team manager for the successful Marlboro Yamaha team, winning three 500cc titles with Eddie Lawson riding.
9 Most Grand Prix Starts: Valentino Rossi
Arguably the most popular Grand Prix rider of all time, Italian Valentino Rossi has been credited with the huge surge in popularity of MotoGP over the 25 years in which he competed, first in the 125cc class, then in the 250cc class and finally in the 500cc/MotoGP class. He won the 125cc title in 1997, the 250cc title in 1999 and the 500cc/MotoGP title in 2001, ’02, ’03, ’04, ’05, ’08 and ’09.
He continued racing through to the end of the 2021 season and amassed a total of 372 race starts in 500cc/MotoGP alone, finishing on the podium 199 times and winning 89 races, while his total score of race victories across all classes is 115, just seven shy of Agostini. The sport is richer for his presence and also poorer for his absence.
8 Highest Top Speed: Jorge Martin
MotoGP bikes are fast, we all know that. However, for many years, fast lap times were a product of not only top speed, but also speed through the corners. In recent years, Ducati has built ever more powerful engines that have simply eclipsed the opposition in terms of outright top speed in a straight line.
In 2021, satellite Ducati rider Johann Zarco set a quite incredible new top speed record of 361.1 km/h (224 mph) at the Italian Grand Prix. The record was not destined to last long, as the following year, another Ducati rider, Jorge Martin, raised it by 1.2 km/h to 363.6 km/h (225.7 mph). With the new emphasis on aerodynamics, enabling MotoGP bikes to accelerate harder and quicker out of corners onto long straights, few would bet against that record being broken in 2023.
7 Most Wins In A Season: Marc Marquez
This is a bit tricky. Marc Marquez holds the record for the highest total of wins in the premier class of Grand Prix racing, when he took 14 victories from a total of 18 races in 2014. However, Mick Doohan won 12 races in 1998, a season in which there were only 15 races. Then there is Giacomo Agostini, who won ten out of twelve in 1968, ten out of twelve in 1969 and ten out of twelve in 1970.
The only reason he didn’t win more in those three seasons is that, in ’68 and ‘69, he didn’t compete in the last two races, and, in 1970, having not competed in one race during the season, he missed the last race, having wrapped up the title early. In 1971, he won eight out of twelve races, and in 1972, he won eleven out of thirteen! Whichever way you look at it, that only serves to cement his reputation as the greatest ever rider.
6 Most Wins At The Same Grand Prix Circuit: Giacomo Agostini
The man again! With such a long period of domination, it is hardly surprising that Agostini recorded several victories at the same circuit more than once. But it is his record at the Finnish circuit of Tampere that might never be broken, although Marc Marquez might spoil that prediction, having won at the Sachsenring in Germany eight times already, and he’s still got a few seasons to go. Between 1965 and ’73, Agostini was never beaten at the Tampere circuit and made it a round ten victories there with a win in 1975.
5 Most Consecutive Seasons With At Least One Race Win: Agostini/Pedrosa
OK, this is getting a little boring, but what can you do when there is a record such as Agostini’s to play with? Not only did Ago win his first Grands Prix in 1965, his first season of International racing, in both the 350cc and 500cc classes, but he also went on to win at least one race (and always many more) in each subsequent season right up to 1976.
If he didn’t win a race in his last season in 1977, he did at least score three podiums. To break the monotony a little, Dani Pedrosa achieved the same feat, albeit without the same title success, by winning a Grand Prix every year from 2006 to 2017.
4 Youngest Grand Prix Race Winner: Marc Marquez
Racers have always started and ended their careers while in the flush of youth: their bodies just can’t take the punishment of repeated crashes without it exacting a toll. For a racer to continue long into his thirties, let alone his forties, is rare in the extreme. In 1982, Freddie Spencer became the youngest-ever winner of a 500cc Grand Prix, when he won the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix at the age of 20 years and 196 days.
Marc Marquez then beat that record in 2013, winning the U.S. Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas, aged 20 years and 63 days. The youngest ever winner of a Grand Prix in any class is Turkish rider Can Oncü, who was 15 years and 115 days when he won the 2018 Valencia Moto3 race.
3 Oldest Grand Prix Race Winner: Fergus Anderson
Valentino Rossi continued racing into his 40s and won his last race at the age of 38 (the 2017 Dutch TT at Assen), and he was considered the old man of racing. However, that’s nothing compared to our next titleholder, who won the 1953 Spanish Grand Prix at the age of 44 years and 237 days.
It was one of only two 500cc Grand Prix victories, but even more remarkably, he won the 350cc championship for the second time aged 45 years old, having won the first 350cc title aged 44. He was killed riding a BMW in a race in Belgium in 1956, aged 47.
2 Most Successful Manufacturer: Honda
2023 will be the 75th season of motorcycle Grand Prix racing, beating Formula One by a year. In those 75 years, dozens of motorcycle manufacturers have competed but the manufacturer with the most 500cc/MotoGP victories is Honda with an incredible 312. This, despite quitting racing at the end of the 1967 season and only returning in the early 1980s, leaving the way clear for MV Agusta and Agostini to clean up comprehensively up to 1975, and then Suzuki and Yamaha to take over. However, Honda has been the dominant manufacturer, with 25 500cc/MotoGP championship titles. Yamaha is second in the race wins table with 245 and MV Agusta third with 139 victories.
1 Fewest Races To Win A World Title: Joan Mir
2020 was a strange season. Actually, 2020 was a strange year, period, what with a global lockdown in the face of the Covid pandemic. That we had any racing at all was a miracle and the MotoGP season ran to a truncated 14-race schedule. Without the presence of Marc Marquez, out with an injury, it was a topsy-turvy season, the most victories being three each scored by the satellite Yamaha team’s riders Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli.
At the final reckoning, however, it was consistency that won the title, Suzuki’s Joan Mir taking the crown having won only one race but scoring a further six podiums as well as other points-paying finishes. As his one victory was also his maiden MotoGP victory, he also holds the dubious honor of being the rider with the fewest 500cc/MotoGP victories to become world champion.