Wayne Gardner
Wayne Gardner ( born October 11, 1959 in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia ) is an Australian former motorcycle racer and world champion in the class up to 500 cc.
Career
Wayne Gardner began his career in 1977 at the age of 18 years on a used 250 cc engine in the Australian Championship. In his first race he finished in second place and a few weeks later he was able to enter on the Oran Park Raceway 's first win.
1983 drove Gardner first race in the Motorcycle World Championship. At its debut at Assen he collided with the standing on the track after a fall reigning world champion Franco Uncini, who was critically injured thereby. 1984 Gardner was first full season with the Rothmans Honda team in the 500 cc class. In the first race he finished fourth behind Freddie Spencer, Eddie Lawson and Raymond Roche. His first victory he celebrated at Jarama 1986. The following year, Gardner won with seven wins in 14 races the world title. 1986 and 1988 he was vice-champion in each case behind Eddie Lawson. Overall, he won 18 races in the premier class, the last one in 1992 in Donington.
Gardner won the 8- hour race at Suzuka in 1985, 1986, 1991 and 1992.
After the 1992 season, Gardner ended his active career on two wheels, but the Grand Prix circus was connected as a promoter of young Australian drivers like Daryl Beattie.
Immediately after his last World Cup race in late 1992 Gardner denied the DTM race at the Nürburgring and the Hockenheimring in Jägermeister BMW on the side of Armin Hahne. Plans for a full season the following year failed to DTM internal strife. In 1993, Gardner then rose with a Holden Commodore in the automobile racing in the V8 Supercar series one. He won in the first year the race as part of the program for the Australian Grand Prix and finished third in the 1000 km race from Bathurst. In 1994 he formed his own team, Wayne Gardner Racing, and remained faithful to the racing series to 2000.
From 1996 to 2001 Gardner also drove in the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship for Toyota, where he could win a race each in 1999 and 2001. In 1998 he joined with Didier de Radiguès and Philippe Gache at the 24- hour race at Le Mans. The team qualified in 26th and fell in the race in the 155th lap due to engine problems out. Since 2002, Gardner sits at every September held at Goodwood Revival Meeting regularly again in the saddle of racing motorcycles.
In summer 2010, Gardner earned heavy criticism for his claim, the motorcycle road race Isle of Man TT, which he described as a death trap for an immediate ban.
Statistics
World Cup rankings
Grand Prix victories
Le Mans results
Trivia
- Wayne Gardner was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia awarded after winning the title in 1987.
- Gardner was already married once during his Grand Prix time and now with his longtime girlfriend, whom he married on October 13, 2007 in second marriage, two sons.