PEOPLE
On New Year’s Day 1964 Phil Read celebrated his 25th birthday, pretty much knowing that his already successful career was likely to reach new heights during the season to come.
The reason for his confidence was that he had been signed by Yamaha to lead its team in its first real battle with its Japanese rival Honda, for World Championship honours.
Already confident in his own abilities thanks to a win in the 1961 Junior (350cc) TT on the Isle of Man, and numerous successes on the UK mainland short circuits, he was also confident that the Yamaha twins would do the job they were intended for. The RD56 was a 250cc twin-cylinder two-stroke with rotary-valve induction that Yamaha hoped would defeat the four-cylinder four-strokes with which Honda had ruled the roost since 1961.
Phil had proved both his own potential and that of the RD56 in a one-off ride in the Japanese Grand Prix at the end of the 1963 season. Teamed with Fumio Ito, who had won the Belgian GP earlier in the season, Phil made a sensational debut and raced wheel-to-wheel with Honda’s reigning World Champion Jim Redman until two laps from the end when the Yamaha twin went on to one cylinder.
Redman cleared off to win and then Phil’s team-mate Ito went by to relegate him to 3rd. Nevertheless, Yamaha had seen enough and signed Phil to race for them in 1964. He duly rewarded his new employers with their first World Championships, taking successive titles in 1964 and 1965.
In 1964 he took the title from Honda with five GP wins to Jim Redman’s three, and a year later his victory was even more emphatic with seven wins to only three by Redman. For 1966, Honda dominated the 250cc Championship with its
