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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127994
career"Fastest-Lap Percentage In saOce GP (1974 to present - riders with at least 30 starts in 500ccl 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Kenny Roberts Sr. Mick Doohan Freddie Spencer Wayne Rainey Kevin Schwantz Wayne Gardner Barry Sheene Eddie Lawson Alex Criville Johnny Cecotto 58 137 62 83 104 102 97 127 94 34 24 46 18 22 26 19 18 21 41.3% 33.6% 29.0% 26.5% 25.0% 18.6% 18.5% 16.5% 11.7% 11.8% 11 4 Kenny Sr .s adva Itage in thIs department IS so great that Doohan would need 1g fastest laps In hiS next 19 rides to move Into first In this department. It was raining hard that day at Suzua, just the sort of conditions that had roduced some of Kevin's greatest wins. e took the long flight from ogoya to ortland, Oregon, the next day and pent a long time talking to Wayne. ainey, now confined to a wheelchair d running his own Marlboro Yamaha earn. Neither Wayne nor Kevin have ver gone into detail about that talk, but he result of it was that Kevin retired Iter only the third round of the 15ound 1995 season. (The FlM, at the equest of Dorna, I(lter retired Kevin's umber, the only time in GP history that rider's number has been retired.) And suddenly there were no top merican riders on the scene. john ocin ki, groomed by Team Roberts as he man of the future and already a 50cc World Champion, had left Team oberts at the end of the 1992 season. ohn couldn't accept being number two !:,d Wayne found john a distraction. bviously, the team had to go with their umber-one rider even though in doing they lost the services of a very talentnumber two. Kocinskj went back to 250cc racing riefly but, in spite of some great rides n the slowish Suzuki 250, john was emanding improvements and finding tha t the project was not a highly funded uzuki priority. After being beaten on the final lap of the 1993 Dutch TT by Yamaha's Tetsuya Harada in a battle for • second, john's bike broke on the cooling-down lap and he missed the podiUm ceremony. Suzuki's Gary Taylor said that telemetry showed that John had blown the engine on purpose. John denied it, but Suzuki and Kocinski went their separate ways. John was almost immediately snapped up by Cagiva, and it was John who won the gloomy (because of Rainey's crash) 1993"U.S. GP at Laguna Seca. He teamed up with America's Doug Chandler on the factory Cagiva team for 1994 and beat Doohan to win the opener in Australia. He was second to Doohan in Malaysia and after two rounds was leading the points table. Then Schwantz won in japan from Doohan, with Kocinski back in ninth, and that was the last time that an American (John) led the 500cc title chase until Kenny Roberts Jr. did so with his win in the present season. Randy Mamola (12) slides his Cagiva at the Yugoslavian Grand Prix. Mamola ended up on the podium 54 times in his 145 Grand Prix starts. Career Average Points Per Start in 500CC GP (1974 to present - riders with at least 30 starts in 500cc) Rider 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Wayne Rainey Mick Doohan Kenny Roberts Sr. Eddie Lawson Wayne Gardner Freddie Spencer Kevin Schwantz Barry Sheene Alex Criville Randy Mamola 137 83 58 127 102 104 62 94 53 97 Mick Doohan Wayne Rainey Kenny Roberts Sr. Eddie Lawson Wayne Gardner Kevin Schwantz Freddie Spencer Alex Criville John Kocinski Barry Sheene Points* 2399 1443 995 2018 1449 1419 791 1159 601 1096 Average points/start 17.51 17.39 17.16 15.89 14.21 13.64 12.76 12.33 11.34 11.30 •All results from seasons prior to 1993 have been adjusted to the current points system that was adopte<;l at the beginnin9 of the 1993 season. Freddie Spencer stili ranks third in career 500cc GP-winning percentage statistics. John finished third in 1994, with Chandler ninth - and then Cagiva withdrew from the championship. Chandler came back home and went AMA Superbike racing with great success, and John went water- kiing for a year before signing with Ducati in World Superbike. After finishing third with Ducati, he managed to win the World Superbike title with Honda's hard-to-ride RC45. Tha t earned him a ticket back to "the bigs" with MoviStar Honda Pons for 1998 before getting his longtime wish of riding for Erv Kanemoto in 1999. When John put his Kanemoto Honda on the pole for the opener in Malaysia, it was the first pole by an American rider since john himself put the Cagiva on the pole in Argentina in September of 1995. And when Roberts won this year in Ma la ysia, it was the tirst win since Kevin Schwantz at Donington in july of 1994 - ending with a bang (a "big bang" Suzuki) a 61-race "O-for" by American riders. When Kenny Roberts (Jr.) suddenly shut down Doohan in the first two rounds this year, it was the first time an American had won two in a row since Schwantz did it on May 2 and May 16 of 1993 U erez and Salzburgring). Until the Roberts Jr. explosion, 34year-old five-time 500cc World Champion Doohan had been on course to re- career Podium-appearance Percentage In 500cc GP (1974 to present - riders with at least 40 starts in 500ccl Rider Starts Starts Podium 83 137 58 127 102 62 104 97 94 145 64 95 39 78 .52 31 51 40 38 54 Podium % 77.1% 69.3% 67.2% 61.4% 51.0% 50.0% 49.0% 41.2% 40.4% 37.2% No wornes Rainey s podium-appearance percentage IS beyond reach Just to give you an Idea Doohan would have to nde 50 more GPs (more than three full seasons) dnd finish top·three at each of them to better Rainey s incredible podium-appearance percentage If Doohan averages 16 points per race for the remaining 14 races. he will drop into second place ,n all-time average points per start (If s 25 points for first. then 20. 16. 13 11. 10 and down to one pomt for 15th Last year Doohan won the title averaging 17.3 points per race. H,s average alter two races thiS year IS 16 5 pomts per race. write the GP record books, knocking the likes of Kenny Robert Sr., Freddie Spencer and Wayne Rainey down a notch in some very significant all-time statistical departments. He's even appeared capable of putting a move on Giacomo Agostini's longstanding record for most overall wins in the 500cc class. One guy who is certainly rooting for Roberts is IS-time World Champion Giacomo Agostini, whose record of 68 GP wins in the 500cc class was, until Doohan won that fifth title last year, regarded as "unbreakable." Agostini has some records to his credit that really are unbreakable, I believe. He won 15 titles back in the days when it was common to ride in two or more classes in a single season, and, because of that, he managed to win 122 Grands Prix - 68 in 500cc and 54 in 350cc. Nobody will ever break the 350cc record for the simple reason that the 350cc class was dropped GP Wins in 500cc Class 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Giacomo Agostini Mick Doohan Mike Hailwood Eddie Lawson Kevin Schwantz 68 54 37 31 25 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. by the FIM at the end of the 19 2 season, but Doohan started this 16-race season with 54 wins in 500cc - ju t 14 behind Ago. Obviously, the only numbers that really matter are the final points totals at the end of the present season, but just to give you the full impact of who Kenny Roberts is radng this sea on, let's look at Doohan as compared to tl1e greatest riders of the last 25 years. We call it "the modern era," which begins in 1974, the last year that an MY Agusta (with Phil Read) ever took a SOOcc ti tie. In fact, the real reason tha t the "modem era" begin in 1974 is that"there are no reliable FlM statistics for GP starts, fastest laps and pole positions prior to '74. Here is how Doohan stacks up against the best riders of tl1e last quarter century. Just look at the numbers of the guy that Kenny Roberts' kid has taken on. 1:1I Total GP Wins All Classes Giacomo Agostini 122 Angel Nieto 90 Mike Hailwood 76 Mick Doohan 54 Phil Read 52 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Total SOOcc Podiums Mick Doohan Giacomo Agostini Eddie Lawson Wayne Rainey Randy Mamola 95 88 78 64 54