Grand Prix motorcycle racing is the premier championship of motorcycle road racing, which has been divided into three classes since the 1990 season: 125cc, 250cc and MotoGP. Classes that have been discontinued include 350cc and 50cc/80cc. The Grand Prix Road-Racing World Championship was established in 1949 by the sport's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), and is the oldest motorsport World Championship.
There were four classes when the championship started in 1949; 500cc, 350cc, 250cc and 125cc. The 50cc class was introduced in the 1962 season. Due to escalating costs that resulted in a number of manufacturers leaving the championship, the FIM limited the 50cc bikes to a single cylinder, the 125cc and 250cc bikes were limited to two cylinders and the 350cc and 500cc bikes were limited to four cylinders. The 350cc class was discontinued in 1982; two years later the 50cc class was replaced with an 80cc class, which was discontinued in 1989. In 2002, 990cc bikes replaced the 500c bikes and the class was renamed as MotoGP. 660cc bikes replaced the 250cc bikes in the 2010 season, with the class re-branded as Moto2.
Giacomo Agostini, with 15 victories, has won the most world championships. Ángel Nieto is second with 13 world championships and Valentino Rossi, Mike Hailwood and Carlo Ubbiali are third with 9 world championships. Agostini holds the record for the most victories in the 500cc/MotoGP and 350cc classes with eight and seven world championships respectively. Phil Read and Max Biaggi have won the most 250cc/Moto2 championships, with four victories each. Nieto won the most championships in the 125cc and 50cc/80cc classes with eight and six victories respectively.
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, grand, motorcycle, racing, world and/or champions:
“Every morning I woke in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new and fashionable means of quieting people and of making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are to be made to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime.”
—Janet Frame (b. 1924)
“Lastly, his tomb
Shall list and founder in the troughs of grass
And none shall speak his name.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“Everything in Italy that is particularly elegant and grand ... borders upon insanity and absurdity—or at least is reminiscent of childhood.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“Actually being married seemed so crowded with unspoken rules and odd secrets and unfathomable responsibilities that it had no more occurred to her to imagine being married herself than it had to imagine driving a motorcycle or having a job. She had, however, thought about being a bride, which had more to do with being the center of attention and looking inexplicably, temporarily beautiful than it did with sharing a double bed with someone with hairy legs and a drawer full of boxer shorts.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“Until the day when, your endurance gone, in this world for you without arms, you catch up in yours the first mangy cur you meet, carry it for the time needed for it to love it and you it, then throw it away.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
“While the Governor, and the Mayor, and countless officers of the Commonwealth are at large, the champions of liberty are imprisoned.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)