Valentino Rossi
Wayne Rainey
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Valentino Rossi leads 5 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Valentino Rossi at #2 and Wayne Rainey at #9.
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The case for Valentino Rossi
Nine world titles and 115 Grand Prix wins across 125cc, 250cc, 500cc and MotoGP, plus records that still stand for premier-class victories, 89, and premier-class podiums, 199, from 432 career starts over 26 seasons. Rossi won the last 500cc two-stroke title in 2001 and the first MotoGP four-stroke title in 2002, then made the defining move of the modern era: he joined a Yamaha that had not won a race in 2003, won first time out at Welkom in 2004 and took the championship, then repeated it in 2005. Titles followed again in 2008 and 2009. His durability is the outlier. He was still winning Grands Prix in 2017 at 38, seventeen years after his first premier-class win, and finished runner-up in 2015 after the most bitter title fight of the era. He also did more than anyone to turn MotoGP into a global commercial property.
The case for Wayne Rainey
Three consecutive 500cc world championships from 1990 to 1992, with 24 wins and 65 podiums from 94 Grand Prix starts, all achieved in what is widely regarded as the deepest premier-class field ever assembled, against Kevin Schwantz, Eddie Lawson, Wayne Gardner, Mick Doohan and John Kocinski. Rainey's Yamaha YZR500 was rarely the fastest bike; his method was relentless consistency and a refusal to make the error his rivals eventually would. He was leading the 1993 championship by 11 points from Schwantz when he crashed at Misano in September, breaking his spine and losing the use of his legs. He was 32 and had won three of the previous four titles. He returned as a team owner and later raced hand-controlled machinery, and the sport's modern safety standards owe much to what happened to him.