Start date 1972 | ||
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The 1972 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season was the 24th F.I.M. Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix season. The season consisted of twelve Grand Prix races in six classes: 500cc, 350cc, 250cc, 125cc, 50cc and Sidecars 500cc. It began on 30 April, with West German Grand Prix and ended with Spanish Grand Prix on 23 September.
Contents
Season summary
Another year, another championship for Giacomo Agostini, taking his seventh consecutive 500cc crown for MV Agusta. Things were tighter in the 350cc class with Jarno Saarinen giving Agostini a strong challenge. In the 250cc division, Saarinen would win a tight race in a season-long battle with Rod Gould and Renzo Pasolini. Angel Nieto claimed a double, winning the 125cc and 50cc championships for Derbi before the Spanish factory announced its pull out from Grand Prix racing. The Yamaha factory won its first-ever 500cc Grand Prix victory when Chas Mortimer won the 500cc Spanish Grand Prix for the Japanese manufacturer.
This would be the final season for the East German Grand Prix as a championship race, as SED officials, troubled by fans singing Das Lied der Deutschen (the West German national anthem) after Dieter Braun's victory the previous season, limited entries to only Eastern Bloc nations beginning in 1973.
Scoring system
Points were awarded to the top ten finishers in each race. Only the best of five races were counted on 50cc and Sidecars championships, while in the 125cc, 250cc, 350cc and 500cc championships, the best of seven races were counted.