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MotoGP
12 of the best Australian MotoGP winners
Jack Miller put his country back on the MotoGP map with his first win, and joined an exclusive club.
It was an emotional weekend at the TT Assen for Jack Miller.
The Australian rider took his first premier class victory in the MotoGP World Championship, proving his doubters wrong and rewarding the faith placed in him by Honda, who brought the 21-year-old directly into the elite class from Moto3.
Aside from being the first satellite rider to win a MotoGP race since 2006, Miller also became the first Australian rider to triumph since 2012, which was when Casey Stoner took glory at Phillip Island.
Miller joins an illustrious list of 11 other riders who’ve represented Australia on the top step of the premier class podium. Here’s the list:
1. Mick Doohan - 54 wins
Mick Doohan is a five-times 500c World Champion
© Getty Images
Arguably Australia’s best-known world champion – and statistically its most successful – Doohan racked up more than half a century of victories in 10 full seasons in the 500cc class, and five consecutive titles.
2. Casey Stoner - 38 wins
Stoner celebrates his final MotoGP win
© Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
The only Aussie to have won two MotoGP titles with two different manufacturers, Stoner collected 38 on his way to crowns with Ducati and Honda before retiring from racing aged just 27 at the end of the 2012 campaign.
3. Wayne Gardner - 18 wins
Wayne Gardner in action, defending his 500cc title
© Getty Images
Gardner rode when the 500cc machinery was widely regarded to be at its most difficult to handle. Seven of his 18 wins in the class came in his title-winning season in 1987, and he stands alongside Doohan and Stoner as representatives of Autralia in the MotoGP Hall of Fame.
4. Garry McCoy, Daryl Beattie and Jack Findlay - 3 wins each
McCoy’s trio of wins all came in the 2000 season, the penultimate year of the 500s, while two of Beattie’s came on his way to finishing runner-up in the 1995 campaign on a Suzuki. Findlay’s three all came on a Suzuki too.
5. Chris Vermeulen, Troy Bayliss, Kevin Magee, Jack Ahearn and Ken Kavanagh - 1 win
Vermeulen did the business for Suzuki at Le Mans
© Getty Images
Like Miller, Vermeulen’s sole MotoGP win – Suzuki’s last in MotoGP – came in the wet, at Le Mans in 2007. Bayliss's wildcard win at Valencia in 2006 was a much-celebrated victory for Ducati, and Kavanagh was the first Aussie to take a top-flight win, in 1953.
