Below are a few notes related to the tables presented on this website, together with definitions and clarification of some of the terms used, with some examples:
Event:
This is the title under which the event took place, and is often (but not always) related to the country in which it takes place. A few specific examples to take note of:
- The race that takes place at Mugello is now called Grand Prix Italy, but prior to 1991 was known as the Nations Grand Prix.
- The grand prix that takes place at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia has a full title of “Community of Valencia Grand Prix” but this is shorted to Grand Prix of Valencia.
- Often a Grand Prix event can take place at different circuits across the years; for instance the Grand Prix of Spain has taken place at: Montjuich Park, Jarama and Jerez.
- Oddly the first two Grand Prix of Portugal took place in Spain.
- From 1949 to 1976 the British round of the world championship took place on the IOM TT circuit, before moving to Silverstone in 1977 and then subsequently to Donington before moving back to Silverstone.
Circuit:
This is the venue at which the Grand Prix took place. Some things to note:
- Although the circuit name may be the same, there is often a significant change in circuit layout. Two examples of this are Brno and Sachsenring, where the original road circuits were replaced by purpose built circuits.
- On occasion the title of the circuit has changed, without major changes to the layout. For consistency generic circuit names have been used eg A1-Ring has been used throughout and not changed to Red Bull Ring.
- Some countries have hosted Grand Prix events at multiple circuits, for example the USA: Daytone and Laguna Seca have been used for the USA Grand Prix, Indianapolis for the Indianapolis Grand Prix and Austin for the Grand Prix of the Americas.
Category:
The Grand Prix categories have seen several changes over the years. Basically this can be explained as follows:
- Premier-class: As described this has been the premier class since the start of world championship racing in 1949. From 1949 to 2001 the class was basically defined by a maximum capacity of 500cc, whether 4-stroke or 2-stroke. The major change came for the 2002 season when the MotoGP class was introduced in place of the 500cc class, with an increase in maximum capacity for 4-stroke machines to 990cc. The MotoGP class has continued since 2002 with various technical changes.
- Intermediate-class: From 1949 the capacity limit was 250cc, until the introduction of the current Moto2 class in 2010.
- Lightweight-class: From 1949 the capacity limit was 125cc, until the introduction of the current Moto3 class in 2012.
- In addition to these three classes that can be traced back to 1949, there was also the 350cc class that also started in 1949, but was withdrawn at the end of 1982. A 50cc class was also introduced in 1962 until being replaced with the 80cc class in 1984 for six years before being discontinued. These discontinued classes do not appear yet on these pages, they will be included in future developments.
Result:
This is the position that a rider was credited, including any penalties. A few specific definitions are:
- DNF: Did not finish race, for whatever reason, such as machine failure or crash. If a rider starts a race that is subsequently stopped and does not make the re-start then the rider is shown as DNF in the result section of this website. This may differ to some other websites that classify the rider as DNS in such cases (personally I would not want to tell a rider who has suffered an injury that he did not start a race!)
- DNS: Did not start race. This is when a rider has taken part in at least one practice session but for some reason has not started the race; perhaps due to an injury from a crash in practice or qualifying. It is usual in such cases the rider does not get a grid slot, and the grid position is shown as a zero. On occasion the rider may line up on the grid and still not make the start of the race due to a crash or mechanical failure on the warm-up lap – in such cases a grid position is shown.
- EXC: Occasionally a rider is excluded from the results for a rule infringement.
- CNL: Indicates that a race has been cancelled. On such occasions a rider is still awarded Pole Position and this is shown in the list of results for a particular rider
Grid:
This is the position on the grid that a rider starts the race from after all penalties have been applied and consequently may be different to the position achieved in final qualifying, giving an occasional anomaly between the number of Pole Positions (awarded to the rider who tops qualifying) and the number of times a rider has started from number 1 grid position.
Rider:
Not much to say here, other than the common name has generally been used; for example Bill Doran and not William Doran, Sito Pons and not Alfonso.
Machine:
Again, not much to say, also often referred to as the ‘Constructor’.
Sprints:
The Sprint race was introduced for 2023 and is approximately half the distance of the full Grand Prix Race. The results of the sprints in terms of Wins and Podiums are not counted in the rider info summary.