With Marc Marquez from Repsol Honda, who won the 2019 MotoGP Grand Prix de France for shark helmets at Le Mans, Honda has now achieved 300 victories at the highest level in two-wheeled motorsport. With the win this weekend, overcoming a tough challenge from the Ducatis of Andrea Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci, Marquez has 47 MotoGP victories after five races with three first places this season.
Honda won its first motorcycle world championship race in Hockenheim, Germany in 1966 with Jim Redman on the RC181. A few races later, racing legend Mike Hailwood followed with a win in Brno in what was then Czechoslovakia, now known as the Czech Republic.
After ten years in the doldrums, Honda was on the podium with “Fast” Freddie Spencer on the NS500 via the racing arm Honda Racing Corporation or HRC and won 1982 in Spa-Francorchamps. That year a Japanese driver Takazumi Katayama, driver of the 500 cc World Championship, won the Swedish Grand Prix in Anderstop.
In 1985, Spencer accomplished his feat of winning the 250 and 500 classes in one year, using the NSR500 for the first championship. The NSR500 collected a total of 132 race wins with drivers Mick Doohan, Wayne Gardner, Alex Criville and Eddie Lawson.
At the Honda stable, Mick Doohan had the greatest success with Honda racing bikes with 54 podiums, followed by Marquez with 47. Valentino Rossi won 33 races with HRC, while Dani Pedrosa, who left the Honda team last year, won 31 and Spencer , 20.