By Dan Moakes
April 8 2012

With ninety race wins and six world championship titles, but after several years of being only the fourth best manufacturer, Suzuki have now withdrawn from MotoGP competition.  A very familiar name to racing fans and motorcycle enthusiasts alike, Suzuki’s machinery has won over 150 races in the various solo GP classes.

In recent times, the top of Grand Prix racing has been about the contest between primarily Japanese and Italian motorcycles, but this year another of the Japanese manufacturers will be missing, with Suzuki absent from the premier class for the first time in over 40 years. Italian successes lately have been achieved by Ducati in MotoGP and by Aprilia in the smaller classes, but a number of other Italian concerns were pace setters in an earlier era, headed up by MV Agusta, the winners of 38 rider titles and 275 individual races; and with the likes of Gilera and Moto Guzzi.

The Japanese invasion began in 1959 with Honda, and with Suzuki hot on their heels. Title success was not long in coming for Honda, as they won the 250cc and 125cc championships in 1961, and with three crowns a year later when they added the 350cc championship. In all, Honda’s riders won 16 titles in the years 1961-67; but with alternative Japanese machinery, including Yamaha (from 1964) and Kawasaki (from 1969), following on behind them. Suzuki had particular success in the smaller capacity classes - the 125cc and the 50cc.

Suzuki’s first Grand Prix victory was scored at the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy in 1962, when defected East German rider Ernst Degner won the 50cc race riding the RM62 model. That year saw the 50cc class incorporated into the world championship series for the first time, and the title was won by Degner with four wins in a row. Bringing technical knowhow from his time racing for MZ, Degner also helped make the 125cc RT62 model into a competitive machine, and on this New Zealander Hugh Anderson won the Argentine GP. The same event saw the Kiwi win the 50cc race.

Indeed, Anderson would prove to be Suzuki’s most successful GP rider. From 1962 to 1965 he won 17 races in the 125cc class and another eight in the 50cc class. Six 125 wins in 1963 gave him the title, and seven in 1965 saw him repeat this achievement. He was also the champion in the 50cc series twice in 1963-64. The same period saw Degner take a total of ten Grands Prix in the two classes. There were also three 50cc titles for Hans-Georg Anscheidt in 1966-68, as well as one in the 125s for Dieter Braun in 1970. Altogether, Suzuki riders won 65 GPs in these two classes across a decade, culminating in Barry Sheene’s run to second place in the 125 championship during 1971, when he won three races.

But it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that the ‘big four’ from Japan, with their two-stroke technology, really began to challenge MV’s dominance in the premier 500cc class. Honda riders Jim Redman and Mike Hailwood had seriously rivalled MV star Giacomo Agostini with their ten wins in 1966-67, before the marque’s withdrawal. And there had been a win for Suzuki in the 1971 Ulster GP, followed by one for Kawasaki in the Spanish race the same year; then the first win for Yamaha had followed at the end of 1972. But the pressure was stepped up by Yamaha and Suzuki in 1974-75, and it was Agostini himself who first took the 500 title on a Japanese bike, riding for Yamaha in 1975.

Thereafter, the Japanese two-strokes were king, to the extent that in 1976-77 the top fifteen riders almost exclusively raced Suzukis. The machines to have over the next few years were the Suzuki RG500 or the Yamaha YZR500, and in the years 1976 to 1982 the RG was the winner of 48 out of 75 GPs, or 64% of the championship races that were run. Honda were back in the winners’ circle from 1982 onwards, and for a few years their main rival was Yamaha; but Suzuki’s challenge was far from over, and in 1988 to 1995 they were the winners of 28 races, although all but three of them went to their loyal and spectacular lead rider Kevin Schwantz.

Yet Suzuki was usually the third of the Japanese manufacturers, and 500cc titles came around only six times. Barry Sheene had moved up to the premier class and, across five seasons, he would take his tally of GP wins with Suzuki to 21 - only bettered by Anderson and Schwantz. Sheene was Suzuki’s first 500 title winner, achieving that honour twice in 1976-77, but thereafter losing out in his rivalry with Yamaha’s Kenny Roberts. In 1981-82 Italian riders Marco Lucchinelli and Franco Uncini triumphed for Suzuki, but it would be either Honda or Yamaha on top for the next ten years - although Suzuki’s presence during this period did not always involve full works machinery.

Schwantz was the 500 runner-up in 1990, and for several years he was usually a contender with the RGV500, but only a single title came his way - in 1993. After Daryl Beattie was runner-up in 1995, the late ’90s saw another somewhat quiet time for Suzuki, but a final championship went the way of Kenny Roberts ‘Jr’ in 2000, when he defeated the many Honda NSR500 riders, this having been the dominant motorcycle of the previous few years. But in truth, after Schwantz took his exit during 1995, there were only a couple of seasons in which Suzuki were regular race winning contenders - Roberts tasting victory eight times in 1999-2000. Since then there have only been two Suzuki race wins; both were secured in wet or partially wet conditions, and only one was with one of their post-500 MotoGP bikes.

Indeed, Roberts was Suzuki’s lead rider for seven seasons and was twenty times on the podium, but he achieved this only once in his final three years (2003-05). In all, Suzuki riders have stood on the podium only 17 times post-2000, these results proving the exception rather the rule, and with the GSV-R models (both 990cc and 800cc) being largely disappointing in the four-stroke MotoGP era that began in 2002. However, there had been signs of a turnaround in the 2007 season, with four podium results each for Chris Vermeulen and John Hopkins, including Vermeulen’s win at Le Mans. Hopkins’ run of consistent results, including 11 times in the top six, placed him in fourth place overall, behind only star riders Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi. Vermeulen was also sixth overall - but in the last decade (up to the end of 2011) this was the only year that any Suzuki rider made the final top six.

In a five-year period which has seen 39 wins for Yamaha and 24 each for Ducati and Honda, the sad truth is that Suzuki’s 800cc bike did not achieve even one podium result in the last three seasons. Vermeulen had a best result of fifth in 2009 (just the once), as did team-mate Loris Capirossi (four times), and in the last two years Álvaro Bautistá matched that three times. Capirossi could do no better than seventh in 2010, but does go down as Suzuki’s last man to stand on the podium, for his third place in the 2008 Czech GP. So it has been a sad end to Suzuki’s Grand Prix adventure, but one can only hope that they will make a return to the main stage in the near future - they will surely be welcome if they do.

Suzuki’s 500cc (and MotoGP) race winners, 1971 to 2007:
Kevin Schwantz 25; Barry Sheene 18; Kenny Roberts Jr 8; Marco Lucchinelli 6; Wil Hartog, Randy Mamola and Franco Uncini 5; Jack Findlay and Pat Hennen 3; Virginio Ferrari and Daryl Beattie 2; John Williams, John Newbold, Dennis Ireland, Boet van Dulmen, Jack Middelburg, Alex Barros, Sete Gibernau and Chris Vermeulen 1.