All the countries that have won the world championship with the rider/bike pairing

11/10/2022

This is the first time that a rider in MotoGP has won the world championship riding a motorcycle from the same country. World champions: all the precedents both in the premier class and in the other classes of Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

Pecco Bagnaia and Ducati have done it: the MotoGP title is once again Italy’s thanks to a memorable comeback. After the German GP which marked the halfway point of the championship, number 63 was 91 points behind Fabio Quartararo.

Too many points to recover in just 10 GPs according to the experts. They hadn’t reckoned on Bagnaia’s desire to make a comeback and class, who on the formidable Desmosedici GP 22 had 5 wins, a 2nd place and 2 3rd places, overtaking the Frenchman in Thailand and then pulling ahead in Malaysia.

The last Italian rider to win the MotoGP world title was Valentino Rossi in 2009 after a hard battle with his teammate Jorge Lorenzo. For the Doctor, this was his 9th World Championship win and the 7th in the premier class, all with Brembo brakes.

On the other hand, the only Ducati win in MotoGP was with Casey Stoner who had an amazing season in 2007 riding a Desmosedici GP 7 with an 800 cc engine, Bridgestone tires and Brembo calipers: 10 wins, 14 podiums and 367 points in 18 GPs and the arithmetic certainty of winning the title obtained in Motegi, the fourth last GP of the season.

To find the last Italian double win in the premier class on the other hand, we have to go back 50 years as we can see below: in 1972 Giacomo Agostini, riding an MV Agusta 4-stroke bike, won the 500 cc class leaving his rivals with nothing but crumbs.

The number of rider/bike pairings from the same country capable of winning the premier class title therefore rises to 13: this name is used to define the 500 class that raced from 1949 to 2001 and MotoGP which has replaced it since 2002.

The precedents in the 500 cc class

The first to do it were the British Leslie Graham and AJS in the first World Championship in 1949: in actual fact, that year Nello Pagani with Gilera had 9 more points but at the time riders could discard their worst scores. Of the 6 races held, only the best 3 were counted and Graham and AJS came out best.

At the time, also due to the difficulty in getting hold of vehicles from overseas and the still strong national pride (WWII had only ended in 1945), it was unlikely that a rider would use a motorbike from another country.

It was no coincidence that all the first four editions of the 500 World Championship were won by riders who rode motorcycles of the same nationality: in 1950 and in 1952 Umberto Masetti triumphed with Gilera and in 1951 Geoff Duke with Norton as well as in 1949 as already mentioned.

However, the superiority of the Italian marques became increasingly evident and British riders also began to use MV Agusta and Gilera, preventing other pairings. The only exception in 1957 was Libero Liberati, world champion with Gilera and 4 wins, 3 of which were consecutive.

In 1966 Agostini came on the scene, and riding an MV Agusta he won no fewer than 7 500cc World Championships in a row. Initially, the Italians had to really struggle to beat Mike Hailwood and Honda, but after that Ago and the Cascina Costa racing department made it all look very easy.

In 1972 with the MV Agusta three-cylinder four-stroke, the most successful of all time (15 World Championship titles and 122 GP wins) he wore the 500 class crown, winning 11 of the first 12 GPs and also obtaining 12 fastest lap times. Satisfied with what he had achieved, he didn’t go to Spain, which was the last round in that championship.

Since then, prior to the Bagnaia-Ducati duo, no other country has managed to clinch a pairing in the premier class. The US riders who dominated the 1980s and the beginning of the Nineties, like the Australians after that and more recently the Spaniards, have never had a motorcycle from their country in the 500-MotoGP. Since 1975, the Japanese manufacturers have excelled (first Yamaha, then Suzuki and then Honda), with the only exception being the Ducati win in 2007. However, the technical superiority of the Japanese motorbikes has not been matched by a group of riders from the Land of the Rising Sun who have succeeded in making the difference.

The last precedents in the other classes

However, the pairings in the other classes are much more frequent as can be seen from this ranking ,which starting with the most recent and working backwards retraces, for each category, the last time a rider and a bike from the same country won the World Championship.

Moto3: Izan Guevara and GasGas (Spain, 2022)

In his second year in the World Championship, the Spaniard earned the title in the lowest class with 7 wins and 12 podiums with the Aspar team GasGas. And yet after the first 4 races he was only 4th with half of the points that Dennis Foggia had but then he moved into top gear and became a champion when he was 18 years and 110 days old.

Moto2: Stefan Bradl and Kalex (Germany, 2011)

In 2010 Moto2 replaced the 250 class: Toni Elias won with Moriwaki. But in the following season, Kalex showed that it was better. The first rider to win the World Championship with the German manufacturer was Stefan Bradl in 2011, also thanks to the physical problems that stopped Marc Marquez from competing in the last two GPs.

125: Marc Marquez and Derbi (Spain, 2010)

Twelve years ago Marc Marquez began building his legend riding a Derbi RSA 125 prepared by the Ajo Motorsport team. Starting with Mugello he won 5 GPs in a row, then won another 5 and overtook Nicolas Terol to win the first of his 8 World Championships.

250: Hiroshi Aoyama and Honda (Japan, 2009)

Japan hasn’t won a world title since 2009 when Hiroshi Aoyama got the better of a string of Aprilias and Gileras thanks to his impressively consistent performance: he finished all 16 GPs in the top 8 positions assisted by the Scot Racing Team's Honda.

80: Manuel Herreros and Derbi (Spain, 1989)

For 6 seasons, from 1984 to 1989, the World Championship had a fourth class, the 80 one. The last world champion in this category was Manuel Herreros, although he didn’t get any outright wins: with Derbi he achieved 4 second places, 1 fourth and 1 fifth out of 6 races, ahead of Krauser who won 5 GPs.

50: Ricardo Tormo and Bultaco (Spain, 1981)

Ricardo Tormo is the name that the Valencia circuit is known by and is a tribute to the local rider who lost his battle with leukemia in 1998. Tormo was twice world champion once again in the 50 class with Bultaco. The last time was in 1981 with 6 wins in 8 races.

350: Takazumi Katayama and Yamaha (Japan, 1977)

When the World Championship first started there were 4 classes: 125, 250, 500 and 350. The last class existed until 1982, but we have to go back to 1977 to find the last pairing: this was achieved by Takazumi Katayama on a Yamaha which took the first 16 positions in the standings. The Japanese rider won 5 GPs without ever starting in pole position.