[2] The foundation of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme as the international governing body for motorcycle sport in 1949 provided the opportunity to coordinate rules and regulations in order that selected events could count towards official World Championships.

The most successful rider in Grand Prix history is Giacomo Agostini with 15 titles and 122 race wins.

In the top-flight series, Agostini holds the title record with eight, followed by Valentino Rossi with seven and active rider Marc Márquez with six.

An FIM Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix was first organized by the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme in 1949.

In cases of technical modifications, the MSMA can unilaterally enact or veto changes by unanimous vote among its members.

This led to a mass walk-out of the sport by the previously highly successful Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha manufacturer teams, skewing the results tables for the next several years, with MV Agusta effectively the only works team left in the sport until Yamaha (1973) and Suzuki (1974) returned with new two-stroke designs.

From the mid-1970s through to 2001, the top class of GP racing allowed 500cc displacement with a maximum of four cylinders, regardless of whether the engine was a two-stroke or four-stroke.

This is unlike TT Formula or motocross, where two and four strokes had different engine size limits in the same class to provide similar performance.

Some two- and three-cylinder two-stroke 500s were seen, but though they had a minimum-weight advantage under the rules, typically attained higher corner speed and could qualify well, they lacked the power of the four-cylinder machines.

The premier class was rebranded MotoGP, as manufacturers were to choose between running two-stroke engines up to 500cc or four-strokes up to 990cc or less.

In 2009, during the Great Recession, in an effort to cut costs, MotoGP underwent changes including reducing Friday practice sessions and testing sessions, extending the lifespan of engines, switching to a single tyre manufacturer, and banning qualifying tyres, active suspension, launch control and ceramic composite brakes.

[7] The sport's governing body received applications from sixteen new teams looking to join the MotoGP class.

For the 2016 season, the Open subclass was dropped, and factory entries switched to a standard engine control unit software.

Grid positions are determined based on qualifying speeds, arranged in descending order, with the fastest rider occupying the pole.

Now, when rain falls, a white flag is shown, indicating that riders can pit to swap the motorcycle on which they started the race for an identical one, as long as the tyres are different (that is, intermediates or wets instead of slicks).

Motorcycle crashes are usually one of two types: lowside, when the bike loses either front or rear tire grip and slides out on the "low" side, and the more dangerous highside, when the tires do not completely slide out, but instead grip the track surface, flipping the bike over to the "high side", usually catapulting the rider over the top.

The most dominant rider of all time was Mike Hailwood, winning 10 out of 12 (83%) races, in the 250cc class, in the 1966 season.

Presently four-cylinder engines appear to offer the best compromise between weight, power, and fuel consumption as all competitors in the 2009 series used this solution in either 'V' or in-line configuration.

In addition, the minimum weight of four-cylinder bikes used by all participating teams was increased by 3 kg (6.6 lb).

The highest speed for a MotoGP motorcycle in 125cc category is 249.76 km/h (155.19 mph) by Valentino Rossi in 1996 for Aprilia and the top speed in the history of MotoGP is 366.1 km/h (227.5 mph), set by Brad Binder during the 'Sprint' race of 2023 Italian Grand Prix with a KTM RC16.

On 11 December 2009, the Grand Prix Commission announced that the MotoGP class would switch to the 1,000cc motor limit starting in the 2012 season.

[29] Carmelo Ezpeleta, the CEO of Dorna Sports, indicated that the projected changes were received by the teams favorably.

These devices have been common place in MotoGP since the back-end of 2018, when Ducati first introduced a system that could lower the rear of its bike to help with acceleration off the line for race starts.

A change of rules was introduced in 2014, allowing under-age FIM CEV Repsol Moto3 (junior) champions to participate in a subsequent Moto3 series at World Championship level.

However, after a rash of incidents involving young rider fatalities in lower classes, the FIM set a minimum age of 18 starting in the 2023 season.

[40] Tyre selection is critical, usually done by the individual rider based on bike 'feel' during practice, qualifying and the pre-race warm-up laps on the morning of the race, as well as the predicted weather.

In wet conditions, special tires ('wets') with full treads are used, but they suffer extreme wear if the track dries out.

This introduced a problem of tire choice versus weather (among other factors) that challenges riders and teams to optimize their performance on race day.

Rossi, disappointed with and critical of the performance of his Michelin tires, switched to Bridgestones for 2008 and won the world championship in dominant fashion.

[60] MotoGP 2010, an iOS game made in 2010 by I-Play, released on 3 September 2010 and was not received well by critics after having a 43% rating on Metacritic.