Barry Sheene and Kenny Roberts’ closest battle

Barry Sheene and Kenny Roberts first encountered each other at Daytona in 1974 and would race against one another more than 100 times over the next decade. They were unrelenting rivals on track, but their competitive needle was underpinned by mutual respect and, at the time, a closer friendship than their public persona suggested.

Sheene was one of the first riders to understand the value of what we would today call a ‘personal brand’, and both men understood that a competitive narrative would be good for them and good for the sport as a whole. 

That crystallised in its rawest form at the 1979 British Grand Prix. Just a few months earlier, riders had gone on strike at Spa-Francorchamps in response to poor conditions and unnecessary risk, but you would never suspect such dissent given the show that was put on at Silverstone.

Roberts arrived defending the crown he had won in his rookie season, while two-time 500cc World Champion Sheene didn’t stand much chance of Championship victory. But he most certainly had the hunger to win in front of the home crowd.

Qualifying didn’t go well for the Brit. Silverstone is a fast circuit, even quicker in 1979 than it is today, and a good lap time depended on carrying speed through Maggots and Abbey. No matter how much Sheene adjusted his Suzuki RG500’s set-up, he couldn’t match the pace of Roberts’ Yamaha OW45. He ended up fifth on the grid, 1.7 seconds behind pole-sitting Roberts. 

Come race day, Roberts had his own challenges. On the sighting lap, a prolonged wheelie off the line resulted in an oil seal popping off. He nursed the Yamaha back to the grid where the mechanics hastily replaced the seal, topped up the oil and, crucially, cleaned the oil off the rear tyre. 

When the race started, both riders were able to put their earlier woes to bed. They stormed away from the rest of the field, in the process turning the act of riding a motorcycle into an artform. It was at half race distance that Sheene took the lead for the first time, placing his Suzuki up the inside of Roberts’ Yamaha at Woodcote. They were travelling at around 130mph, and that’s when Sheene offered his salute to Roberts. The American found it as amusing as the crowd did, and if anything it would have spurred him on to regain the lead.

The two riders exchanged the lead many times, and it was clear that neither had the upper hand. As long as there were no offs or mechanical failures, the win would be decided on the final lap. This was a true edge-of-the-seat spectacle. On the penultimate lap, Sheene was right up with Roberts when they encountered back-markers.

The Yamaha rider passed them with more ease than his pursuing rider. Sheene was baulked by George Fogarty (father of Carl) and Roberts built a lead of around 20 metres. Given how closely matched the two leaders were, that was a big gap to close with little time to do so.

In the end, Sheene crossed the line 0.030 seconds behind the race-winning Roberts. It could barely have been closer. While the home crowd didn’t see their man win, they had been treated to one of the best spectacles in motorcycle racing history. For his victory lap, Roberts stood in the boot of an Austin Princess.

By claiming 15 points, he had pretty much cemented his second consecutive title, while Sheene had a mixture of anger at the back-markers and delight at having turned around the poor qualifying pace. Speaking decades later, Roberts said: “There was no loser that day — if you come that close, there’s no losers.”

That comment succinctly sums up the relationship between the riders. Fierce rivals underpinned by mutual respect. In later years, after Sheene’s untimely passing in 2003 at the age of 52, Roberts has spoken about Sheene’s integrity and the fact that there was nobody he trusted more in wheel-to-wheel competition.

And, decades after that colossal battle at Silverstone, we’ll be celebrating great rivalries like these at the 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard. We can’t wait to see what’s in store.

Tickets are now available for the 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed. If you’re not already part of the GRRC, you can sign up to the Fellowship today and save ten per cent on your 2026 tickets and grandstand passes, as well as enjoying a whole host of other on-event perks.

Main image courtesy of Getty Images.