You’re not going to beat Marc by finishing 2nd and hoping he has a bad race. Really wish Dovi would have went to the front and bunched everyone up. Hell, that probably wouldn’t have worked either but damn, do something. Dovi playing the long game isn’t working. 2nd or 5th is the same right now.
Basing it on wins and championships? What kind of crazy talk is that? You could try to make it about how difficult the bikes were to ride but you'd have to rule out riders like Rossi who didn't have to try to win on ill handling bikes with shitty suspension and drum brakes, not to mention the skinny little tires. Of course that would still leave Agostini as the GOAT.
The real question is how many rally cars has he destroyed? Or was it European models one has to destroy to be the GOAT?
Maybe they should race shopping carts too. That will absolutely tell us who the GOAT is in motorcycle racing.
Lots of stories about Read, some good, some not so good, from what I can tell you never knew which Phil Read would turn up.
I think the argument over GOAT status isn't complete until you've factored in how colorful the guy's lettering and leathers are. That's gotta count for something.
Ago raced when everyone was expected to race more than one class in one weekend. It's like if Rossi gridded up for Moto3, Moto2 and MotoGP every race weekend, then he has 3 chances of winning a championship PER year. $hit he could very well have been a 27, 30 , 50 time world champion, but we'll never know right? because racing multiple classes has not really been done in over 20+ years.
I was actually only counting Ago's 8 championships in the premier class but you've made another good argument as to why he's the GOAT.