Most MotoGP Wins (Premier-Class Race Winners)

Valentino Rossi holds the record for the most premier-class MotoGP wins, with 89 victories across the 500cc and MotoGP eras. That figure sits at the top of the sport’s top category, and no active or retired rider has passed it.

The word to watch is “premier-class.” MotoGP has always run smaller categories alongside the main one, and folding those in changes the numbers entirely. Kept to the top class, Rossi leads on 89; counted across every category, the overall record belongs to someone else. Getting that distinction right is the whole story of this record.

The most premier-class MotoGP wins

The table ranks riders by wins in the top category only, combining the old 500cc era with the modern MotoGP era. Figures for the active rider are through the 2024 season.

Rider	Premier-class wins
Valentino Rossi	89
Giacomo Agostini	68
Marc Marquez (active)	60+ (through 2024)
Mick Doohan	54
Casey Stoner	38

Rossi’s 89 came over a career that stretched from the final 500cc seasons into the four-stroke MotoGP era, which is part of why the total is so large: he stayed competitive for an unusually long time. Agostini’s 68 all came in the 500cc days, and Marc Marquez has been steadily climbing the list as the leading active rider.

Premier-class versus all-class: the number that trips people up

Here is where totals diverge. Giacomo Agostini won 68 premier-class races but 122 Grand Prix in total once his 350cc wins are added. That 122 is the all-time Grand Prix win record across every category, and it is the figure often quoted when people call Agostini the winningest rider ever.

Both statements are true at once: Agostini holds the all-class record with 122, and Rossi holds the premier-class record with 89. They simply measure different things. When a debate about the “most MotoGP wins” gets heated, it is usually because one side is counting the top class only and the other is counting everything. Say which you mean and the argument disappears.

Where Marc Marquez fits

Marquez is the active rider reshaping this list. Through the 2024 season he had won more than 60 premier-class races, enough to place him among the top three in the top category’s history, and as an active rider he has kept adding to that number since. Reaching Rossi’s 89 would still take several more strong campaigns, so the record is in range but not yet under threat.

His career also shows how quickly a total can stall and restart. A run of dominant seasons in the 2010s built most of his wins; a stretch of serious injuries paused it; and a move to a new team revived it. That stop-start shape is unusual among the riders near the top, most of whom accumulated wins in a steadier line.

What Rossi’s total was built on

Part of what makes 89 hard to catch is how Rossi accumulated it. He won on more than one manufacturer, taking premier-class races on Honda, Yamaha, and Ducati machinery, which almost no rider near the top of the list managed. Winning as bikes, tyres, and rules changed around him is a big reason the total climbed so high.

The other factor is sheer longevity. Rossi contested the premier class from 2000 into the 2020s, an unusually long top-flight career, and stayed a race-winner deep into it. A rider chasing 89 needs both that peak dominance and that length of career, a rare pairing that is why the mark has stood alone for so long.

Wins are not titles

It is worth separating this record from the championship one, because the names at the top differ. Agostini leads the premier class in world titles with eight; Rossi leads it in race wins with 89. A rider can win a pile of races without the season-long consistency a championship demands, and vice versa, so the two lists rarely crown the same rider.

For the championship side of the story, see our breakdown of the most MotoGP championships, where Agostini’s titles sit ahead of Rossi’s. And if you want to see how two-wheel racing stacks up against four, MotoGP versus F1 compares the two disciplines head to head. Rossi’s 89 is the premier-class mark to beat, and for now it is beating everyone.