John Surtees is born in Tatsfield, Surrey.
The son of a south London motorcycle dealer. He had his first professional outing in the sidecar of his father's Vincent, which they won. However, when race officials discovered Surtees's age, they were disqualified. Surtees entered his first solo race at 15 in a grasstrack competition. In 1950, at the age of 16, he went to work for the Vincent factory as an apprentice. At 16 I washed dishes at a Ramada Inn.
Norton race chief Joe Craig gave John Surtees his first factory sponsored ride for Norton in 1955. He responded by finishing the year beating reigning world champion Geoff Duke at Silverstone and then at Brands Hatch. However, with Norton in financial trouble and uncertain about their racing future, Surtees accepted an offer to race for the MV Agusta factory racing team, where he soon earned the nickname Figlio del Vento (son of the wind).
In 1956 Surtees won the 500cc world championship, MV Agusta's first in the senior class. In this Surtees was assisted by the FIM's (bastards) decision to ban the defending champion, Geoff Duke, for six months because of his support for a riders' strike for more starting money. In the 1957 season, the MV Agustas were no match for the Gileras and Surtees battled to a third place finish aboard an MV Agusta 500 Quattro.
When Gilera and Moto Guzzi pulled out of Grand Prix racing at the end of 1957, Surtees and MV Agusta went on to dominate the competition in the two larger displacement classes. In 1958, 1959 and 1960, he won 32 out of 39 races and became the first man to win the Senior TT at the Isle of Man TT three years in succession.
In 1996, Surtees was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. The FIM honored him as a Grand Prix "Legend" in 2003.
Already a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2008.
