Mike Hailwood
John Surtees
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Mike Hailwood leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Mike Hailwood at #4 and John Surtees at #11.
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The case for Mike Hailwood
Nine world championships in ten seasons: 250cc in 1961, 1966 and 1967, 350cc in 1966 and 1967, and four consecutive 500cc titles from 1962 to 1965 with MV Agusta. He took 76 Grand Prix wins from just 152 starts, 37 of them in the premier class, and 112 podiums, all before his 28th birthday. Hailwood's range is what separates him: he won world titles on MV Agusta and Honda, competed across four capacity classes in a single weekend, and won 14 Isle of Man TTs. After leaving bikes he raced in Formula 1 across 50 entries with two podiums, and was awarded the George Medal for pulling Clay Regazzoni from a burning car at Kyalami in 1973. In 1978, aged 38 and eleven years out of the sport, he returned to the Isle of Man and won the Formula One TT on a Ducati.
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.