Fifty years ago Jarno Saarinen was on his way to winning the 500cc (later MotoGP) world championship for the first time and few people in the know doubted he would go on to become one of motorcycle racing’s all-time greats. In fact, by then the Finnish genius had already transformed the sport, by teaching ‘King’ Kenny Roberts to hang off his motorcycle to improve his lap times. Roberts won a hat-trick of 500cc titles using this technique, which soon became universal.
If Saarinen had lived longer, grand prix racing might have been very different for
