🏍️Competitions

The premier class of the FIM Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix and the sport's outright summit. Contested exclusively by prototypes built by Ducati, Aprilia, KTM, Honda and Yamaha, currently 1,000cc four-cylinder machines producing over 300 horsepower. Twenty-two rounds in 2026, each with a Saturday Sprint and a Sunday Grand Prix. Known as the 500cc class from 1949 to 2001, renamed MotoGP when four-strokes returned in 2002. Roughly 22 riders contest each season across factory and independent teams, all using the same Michelin tyres and control electronics.

Replaced the 250cc two-stroke class in 2010 and now uses a spec 765cc three-cylinder Triumph engine derived from the Street Triple RS, mated to chassis from independent constructors such as Kalex and Boscoscuro. The spec engine makes it a rider and chassis championship rather than an engine war, which is precisely why MotoGP teams treat Moto2 results as a genuine talent signal. Marc Marquez took the 2012 title and Francesco Bagnaia the 2018 one, and almost the entire current premier-class grid came through the class.

Succeeded the 125cc class in 2012, switching from two-stroke to 250cc single-cylinder four-strokes with a rev limit and cost caps designed to keep it accessible. Power is low enough that slipstreaming dominates, producing enormous, chaotic packs and finishes decided by hundredths. Riders must be at least 18, a minimum raised for 2023 after several fatal accidents in junior racing, with a narrow exemption for the FIM JuniorGP and Red Bull Rookies Cup champions. It remains the first rung of the official Grand Prix ladder.

Launched as the FIM Enel MotoE World Cup in 2019 with spec Energica Ego Corsa machines, and elevated to full world championship status in 2023, when Ducati took over as sole supplier with the V21L. Races are short, typically under ten laps, and run at selected European Grand Prix weekends. The series functions partly as a technical laboratory for battery and charging development and partly as a shop window, though its long-term place on the calendar has been debated as the 2027 regulations approach.

The most important championship outside Grand Prix racing, contested by heavily modified versions of road-legal machines from Ducati, BMW, Yamaha, Honda and Kawasaki. Its two-race and Superpole-race format and closer regulations often produce tighter racing than MotoGP. It has its own dynasties, most notably Carl Fogarty in the 1990s and Jonathan Rea's five consecutive titles with Kawasaki. Riders move in both directions: Ben Spies and Toprak Razgatlioglu went up to MotoGP, while several Grand Prix riders have rebuilt careers there.

Run on a 60-kilometre closed public-road course over the Mountain, the TT was part of the world championship from 1949 until 1976, when it was dropped after a riders' boycott led by Giacomo Agostini following Gilberto Parlotti's death in 1972. It continues as an independent event and remains the most dangerous major motorcycle competition in the world. Mike Hailwood won 14 TTs and returned in 1978, eleven years after retiring, to win the Formula One race on a Ducati at the age of 38.

The most prestigious round of the FIM Endurance World Championship and a fixture of enormous importance to the Japanese manufacturers, who treat winning it as a matter of corporate pride. Two or three riders share a production-based machine for eight hours in July heat at Suzuka. Honda has dominated its history, and factories routinely draft in Grand Prix and Superbike stars for the weekend, which has made it the one endurance event that current MotoGP riders will interrupt their season to contest.

A single-make junior series run at selected European Grand Prix weekends, giving riders as young as 15 identical KTM machinery and free access to a professional paddock. Selection is by open trials, which has made it the most meritocratic route into Grand Prix racing and a deliberate counterweight to the cost of national championships. Its graduates include multiple world champions, and the Rookies Cup winner is one of the few riders permitted to enter Moto3 at 17 rather than 18.