Mick Doohan
Casey Stoner
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Mick Doohan leads 5 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Mick Doohan at #5 and Casey Stoner at #6.
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The case for Mick Doohan
Five consecutive 500cc world championships from 1994 to 1998, a run matched in the premier class only by Agostini's seven. Doohan took 54 wins, 58 pole positions and 95 podiums from 137 starts, all with Honda, and every one of those wins came in the premier class. His 1997 season remains a benchmark: twelve victories from fifteen races, with two second places and a crash while leading his home Grand Prix by more than six seconds. The context makes it heavier. A crash in practice at Assen in 1992 left him with permanent damage to his right leg and close to amputation; he lost that year's title to Wayne Rainey by four points, and rode the rest of his career with a thumb-operated rear brake because his right foot could no longer work the pedal. A crash at Jerez in 1999 ended his career.
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.