Wayne Gardner at the Suzuka 8 Hours in 1990, the race he won four times.. Photo: Rikita / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Phillip Island, 16 September 1990. Three weeks earlier, at Brno, Wayne Gardner had crashed in qualifying and broken the scaphoid bone in his right wrist. Before his home Grand Prix, by his own account, the paddock doctor Claudio Costa gave him 25 injections in the wrist so he could hold the throttle.
Early in the race Gardner saved a highside that snapped the front mountings of his Rothmans Honda's fairing. For more than half the race the bodywork flapped around the bike and scraped the track in the corners. He chased down his new teammate, Mick Doohan, passed him and won by 0.856 seconds, setting the fastest lap of the race on the way.
It was his second straight win at Phillip Island. There had only ever been two Grands Prix there.
Who Wayne Gardner was
Wayne Michael Gardner was born on 11 October 1959 in Wollongong, New South Wales, the steel town that gave him his nickname, the Wollongong Whiz. He started racing in Australia in 1977 and made his name in Britain in the early 1980s, first on a Moriwaki Kawasaki superbike and then with Honda Britain.
His 500cc Grand Prix debut, at the 1983 Dutch TT, ended in a collision with the reigning world champion, Franco Uncini. By 1985 he had a full factory Honda ride and finished fourth. In 1986 he won his first Grand Prix at Jarama in Spain and finished second in the championship to Eddie Lawson.
Gardner rode like he lived: flat out. He crashed often, broke legs, feet and wrists, and kept coming back. Fans loved him for it.
1987: Wayne Gardner becomes world champion
Wayne Gardner won the 1987 500cc world title on the Rothmans Honda NSR500, the first Australian to win motorcycling's premier class. He won seven races, took ten pole positions, and clinched the title with a win at Goiânia, in Brazil, at the penultimate round.
His race engineer that year was another Australian, Jeremy Burgess, who had worked with Freddie Spencer and would go on to guide Mick Doohan and Valentino Rossi to their titles.
Back home, the title changed everything. Australia had never had a premier-class motorcycle champion, and Gardner was suddenly a national star. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1988. He also used his fame to push for something the country had never had: its own world championship Grand Prix.
Phillip Island: the first two Australian Grands Prix
In 1988 Gardner finished second in the championship again, held back by mechanical failures. That year he was part of the push to bring a Grand Prix to Phillip Island, a fast, windswept circuit on an island south of Melbourne.
The first Australian motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island ran in 1989, and Gardner won it, holding off Wayne Rainey and Christian Sarron in front of a home crowd that spilled onto the track at the finish.
The 1990 race, with the broken wrist and the loose fairing, was even better. Kevin Schwantz, chasing him, highsided at Turn 1 with less than two laps to go. After the race, surgeons in Sydney took a bone graft from Gardner's hip to rebuild the scaphoid.
Mr 8 Hours: Wayne Gardner at Suzuka
Wayne Gardner's other great stage was the Suzuka 8 Hours, Honda's endurance race in Japan, where factory teams fielded Grand Prix stars. He won it four times, in 1985, 1986, 1991 and 1992. Honda's own history calls him "Mr 8 Hours".
In 1991 he shared the winning RVF750 with Doohan. In 1992, with Doohan injured, he won with Daryl Beattie, then announced his retirement from the race.
What Wayne Gardner left behind
Wayne Gardner's last Grand Prix win came at Donington Park in 1992, and he retired from Grand Prix racing at the end of that season. He then raced touring cars in Australia and Japan for a decade, and won the opening round of the first V8 Supercar season in 1997. Both his sons, Remy and Luca, became motorcycle racers.
His bigger legacy is the path he opened. After Gardner came Mick Doohan's five titles and, later, Casey Stoner's two. Phillip Island, the circuit he helped put on the calendar, hosted the Australian Grand Prix for most of the next four decades. In October 2026 Gardner went back for its last MotoGP weekend before the race moves to Adelaide in 2027.
The first two Grands Prix on that island went to the man who brought it there.
Quick answers
Who was the first Australian 500cc world champion?
Wayne Gardner was the first Australian to win the 500cc world championship, in 1987 on a Rothmans Honda NSR500. He won seven races that season and clinched the title with a win in Brazil at the penultimate round.
Who won the first Australian motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island?
Wayne Gardner won the first Australian motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island in 1989, ahead of Wayne Rainey and Christian Sarron. He won again in 1990, beating his teammate Mick Doohan despite a broken wrist and a damaged fairing.
How many times did Wayne Gardner win the Suzuka 8 Hours?
Wayne Gardner won the Suzuka 8 Hours four times, in 1985, 1986, 1991 and 1992, all with Honda. He shared the 1991 win with Mick Doohan and the 1992 win with Daryl Beattie, then retired from the race.
How many Grands Prix did Wayne Gardner win?
Wayne Gardner won 18 Grands Prix in the 500cc class between 1986 and 1992, all on Honda machinery. His first win came at Jarama in 1986 and his last at Donington Park in 1992.
