[5] At the end of the 1965 season, Hailwood left to join Honda as he had tired of working for the difficult Count Agusta.

With Agostini now the top MV Agusta rider, he responded by winning the 500cc title seven years in succession for the Italian factory.

[6] At the time, the Isle of Man TT and the Ulster Grand Prixs were regularly won by Anglophonic (mostly British) riders; in addition to Agostini's successes at the TT he also won 7 Ulster Grand Prix races- he was the only non-British rider to achieve the same kind of success in these British motorcycle races- which were 2 of the most difficult motorcycle races in the world at the time.

[8] [9] In certain aspects the comments were justified and resulted in the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme taking the decision that the Isle of Man TT would be withdrawn from the World Championship calendar after the 1976 races.

However the decision did cause a high degree of dissatisfaction with many pure road racing fans and resulted in some, not least those on the Isle of Man, forming a dislike of Agostini.

[9] However in his defence Agostini always maintained that his sentiment reflected riders being contractually required to race at the Isle of Man as part of a World Championship campaign, as opposed to having the freedom of conscience governing their decision.

[12] Agostini surprised the racing world when he announced that he would leave MV Agusta to ride for Yamaha for the 1974 season.

For the challenging Nürburgring, he chose the 500cc MV Agusta and took it to victory, winning the last Grand Prix for both himself, the marque and the last for four-stroke engines in the 500cc class.

In this role he won three 500cc titles with Eddie Lawson and managed many successful riders including Graeme Crosby and Kenny Roberts.

Between 1986 and 1990 he also managed the Marlboro Yamaha 250cc team with riders like Luca Cadalora, Martin Wimmer and Àlex Crivillé.