Casey Stoner
John Surtees
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Dead even across the measured categories. Our all-time ranking places Casey Stoner at #6 and John Surtees at #11.
Head-to-head FAQ
Who leads more shared metrics?
How do the published ranks compare?
Are these live stats?
The case for Casey Stoner
Two premier-class titles that most of the paddock rates far above their number. In 2007 Stoner won ten races on the Ducati Desmosedici and gave the factory its first riders' championship; no other rider won a title on that machine until Francesco Bagnaia in 2022, and several world champions failed to be competitive on it. In 2011 he moved to Honda and won ten more races and a second crown. His premier-class record is 38 wins, 39 poles and 69 podiums from 115 starts, with 45 Grand Prix wins in total across three classes. Stoner's distinguishing skill was riding beyond the point where the rear tyre was sliding, controlling spin by feel in an era when rivals leaned on electronics. He retired at 27, at the end of the 2012 season, which is the only real argument against him.
The case for John Surtees
Seven world championships in nine seasons of Grand Prix racing: the 500cc title in 1956, 1958, 1959 and 1960, and the 350cc title in 1958, 1959 and 1960, taking the double in each of those three years. He won 38 Grands Prix, 22 of them in the premier class, almost all on MV Agusta after starting with Norton. In 1958 and 1959 he was close to unbeatable in both classes he contested. He then walked away from motorcycles at 26 and moved to cars, winning the 1964 Formula 1 world championship with Ferrari, which makes him the only person to have won world titles on two and four wheels. That crossover, together with his later career as a constructor, gives him a place on any list even though his motorcycle career was short.