Wayne Rainey
Geoff Duke
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Geoff Duke leads 3 of 5 categories. Our all-time ranking places Wayne Rainey at #9 and Geoff Duke at #12.
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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.
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.