Kenny Roberts
Geoff Duke
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Geoff Duke leads 4 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Kenny Roberts at #7 and Geoff Duke at #12.
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The case for Kenny Roberts
Three consecutive 500cc world championships from 1978 to 1980, the first of them as a rookie, from a career of only 60 Grand Prix starts. Roberts took 24 wins, 22 in the premier class, and 44 podiums, having already won back-to-back AMA Grand National titles in 1973 and 1974 and completed the Grand Slam of victories across all five American dirt-track and road-race disciplines. His influence outweighs his totals. He imported dirt-track technique to Grand Prix racing, deliberately breaking rear traction to steer a 500cc two-stroke, and every rider since has ridden some version of that. Off track he was equally consequential: his threatened breakaway World Series in 1979 forced the FIM to improve circuit safety and lifted rider payments dramatically. He later ran his own team and built his own three-cylinder 500cc machine.
The case for Geoff Duke
Six world championships: the 500cc title in 1951, 1953, 1954 and 1955, and the 350cc title in 1951 and 1952. Duke won 33 Grands Prix and 50 podiums from 89 starts, 22 of the wins in the premier class, and was the first rider to take premier-class titles with two different manufacturers, Norton in 1951 and Gilera from 1953. He is also the sport's first genuine modernist: he commissioned a local tailor to make him a one-piece racing suit, replacing the two-piece leathers everyone else wore, and his smooth, low-drag style became the template for road racing technique. In 1956 the FIM suspended him for six months for supporting a riders' strike over start money, which cost him any chance of a fourth consecutive 500cc crown.