At the age of 20, the Honda rider beat Barry Sheene by 3s8 at Spa-Francorchamps to go down in history as the youngest rider to win in the premier class of the MotoGP World Championship. The early record remained intact until 2013, when Marc Márquez won the MotoGP Americas GP
40 YEARS AGO, FREDDIE SPENCER LEFT HIS NAME IN WORLD MOTORCYCLE RACING HISTORY. On that July 4, 1982, the American from Shreveport, Louisiana, became the youngest winner in the premier class when he won the Belgium GP at only 20 years and 196 days old.
Racing for Honda, 'Fast Freddie' arrived at Spa-Francorchamps in fifth place in the championship with 22 points, 41 behind Franco Uncini, the then leader of the World Drivers' Championship. In the standings, however, Spencer was second only to Jack Middelburg.
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With 2min39s533, Spencer secured second on the grid, 0s433 behind Middelburg, the pole owner. Greame Crosby was third, ahead of Barry Sheene and Kenny Roberts, who rounded out the top five.
Starting from the position of honor, Middelburg led the first few laps, but then saw Crosby and Roberts take turns at the front. Before the halfway point of the race, however, Freddie took over from Kenny and began to open up an advantage, until he crossed the finish line almost 4s ahead of Sheene, who managed to take second place.
Uncini also passed Roberts for third, with Randy Mamola closing in fifth place ahead of Marco Lucchinelli, Boet van Dulmen, Körk Ballington, and Michel Frutschi. Marc Fontan completed the top ten.
In addition to the early record, Spencer's victory aboard the NS500 at the Belgian GP was also Honda's first in the premier class of the World Motorcycle Championship since 1967.
"Today is July 4th, America's birthday, and there is no better way to celebrate than this," Spencer said at the time, referring to America's independence day. "Today was the first time I felt I was riding a 500cc well," he said.
Spencer's record of precocity lasted until April 21, 2013, when Marc Marquez, then 20 years and 63 days old, became the youngest winner in the premier class when he triumphed in the GP of the Americas.
In 1983, at the age of 21, Spencer was also the youngest champion in history, a record that was also broken 30 years later by Marc Marquez, who won in MotoGP in his debut season.
MotoGP is now on vacation and will resume on August 7 with the British GP at Silverstone.GRANDE PRÊMIO is following all the activities of the 2022 MotoGP World Championship.