Nobody could touch Carl Fogarty on a Ducati in 1995

In the mid-1990s, the World Superbike Championship was gaining some serious momentum. Increasing worldwide television coverage was attracting global sponsorship and the paddock was looking increasingly like that of the Formula 1 circus. It was the perfect time for a rider to make his name, and that rider would be Fogarty.

There were new teams and new manufacturers for the 1995 season, so it was by no means a forgone conclusion that ‘Foggy’ was going to retain his World Championship crown. That was until the moment the season got going. He had stayed with the Bologna-based Ducati works team headed by Virginio Ferrari and it would prove a dominant combination. The first three rounds of the 1995 season were crammed into four weeks and Fogarty quickly asserted his dominance.

Round three took place at Donington Park, where he claimed his second double win of the year in front of his home crowd. In fact, the sharp end of the grid was an all-Ducati affair, the Japanese teams – Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and the new Yamaha works outfit – all trailed in the wake of the two-cylinder Italian machines.

A mid-season rule change attempted to level the playing field by altering the regulated weights of the two-cylinder Ducatis versus their four-cylinder rivals, but it did nothing to stop Fogarty’s winning ways. 

The World Superbike Championship visited Saltzburg in Austria for the first time in 1995. It was the scene not only for Fogarty’s seventh win of the season but also Ducati’s all-time 100^th victory in the Championship. Across the Atlantic, Fogarty had a blip at Laguna Seca. An uncharacteristic crash in qualifying was followed by a fifth place and seventh place in the races, marking the first round where he failed to step on the podium. 

That was soon forgotten at the following round, though. Fogarty was once again performing in front of a home crowd, this time at Brands Hatch. A combination of the publicity TV coverage and Fogarty’s foreboding form had drawn a record crowd of 45,000 to the Kent circuit. Race-goers’ support was rewarded with another double win, Fogarty’s third of the season.

The home crowd turned out in force again at Assen in Holland with thousands of British fans making the trip across the Channel to see their hero in action. It was a fixture brimming with anticipation; Fogarty needed nothing better than one fifth-place finish to claim the World Championship.

The fast 6km circuit seemed to suit the Ducati and he did rather better than secure the minimum necessary result. Yet another double victory delighted the crowds and meant that Fogarty took the Title with five rounds to spare. 

Speaking after the race, he said: “It’s been a hard year even though people think it hasn’t been. I know I’ve not had the fastest bike out there some of the time but I’ve still won the Championship so that makes it even better.”

Celebrations were dampened with the sad news that Yamaha rider Yasutomo Nagai died two days after the race, succumbing to injuries from a freak accident.

Despite having the Title in the bag, Fogarty would still fight his way to the top step of the podium one more time in 1995 to round off a relentlessly dominant performance. In one season, he had claimed 13 wins, eight pole positions and nine fastest laps. To put that into context, Troy Croser came closest in terms of victories with four wins on his non-works Ducati. 

The 1995 season was the pinnacle of Fogarty’s glittering career. With 59 wins (55 of them on Ducatis), Fogarty took the third number of World Superbike wins on his way to four World Championships.

And now three decades on, we’ll be celebrating that unforgettable season at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard.

The 2025 Festival of Speed takes place on 10^th-13^th July. Saturday tickets are now sold out, but Thursday, Friday and Sunday tickets are still available.

Images courtesy of Getty Images.