1971: the start of the two-stroke GP motorcycle revolution: Mat Oxley
“Imagine Jackie Stewart’s rivals in F1 were upstarts in E-types and Capris”
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
1
2
3
4
5
6
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
1
2
3
4
5
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
Grand prix motorcycle racing reached an important crossroads 50 years ago. Imagine that Jackie Stewart’s closest rivals during the 1971 F1 World Championship were a bunch of young upstarts driving pimped-up Jaguar E-types and Ford Capris.
This was the situation in which Giacomo Agostini found himself that summer. During 1971 the Italian stallion won his sixth consecutive 500cc world title, riding four-stroke grand prix bikes belonging to the Agusta family. He had no serious opposition because Meccanica Verghera Agusta was the only manufacturer contesting the championship, but the privateers who shared the podium that year rode mongrels powered by two-stroke engines taken from a new generation of high-performance Japanese road bikes.
Agostini’s state-of-the-art three-cylinder MV made around 80bhp and was available only to those riders anointed by Count Agusta, which in 1971 was Ago and no one else.
