Kenny Roberts
John Surtees
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
John Surtees leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Kenny Roberts at #7 and John Surtees at #11.
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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 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.