Toni Mang

Anton Mang

Nation:	Germany
Motorcycle world championship
statistics
Starts Victories Poles SR 154 42 34 26th
World title:	5
World Cup points:	1405
Podiums:	84
According to class (es): 125 cc class First start: Dutch TT 1976 Last start: Great Britain Grand Prix 1977 Constructors 1976-1977  Morbidelli World Cup balance WM-fifth ( 1976 - 1977 ) Starts Victories Poles SR 11 1 - 1 World Cup points: 87 Podiums: 4th 250 cc class First start: Venezuela Grand Prix 1978 Last start: 1988 Grand Prix of Yugoslavia Constructors 1978–1982  Kawasaki  • 1984  Yamaha  • 1985–1988  Honda World Cup balance World Champion ( 1980 - 1981 , 1987 ) Starts Victories Poles SR 106 33 23 25th World Cup points: 986 Podiums: 60 350 cm³ class First start: Grand Prix of Austria 1975 Last start: Grand Prix of Germany 1982 Constructors 1975 SMZ • 1978–1982  Kawasaki World Cup balance World Champion ( 1981 - 1982 ) Starts Victories Poles SR 31 8th 11 - World Cup points: 326 Podiums: 20th 500 cc class First start: Grand Prix of Germany 1977 Last start: 1983 San Marino Grand Prix Constructors 1977, 1983  Suzuki World Cup balance Eighteenth World Cup ( 1983 ) Starts Victories Poles SR 6th - - - World Cup points: 6th Podiums: -

Toni Mang , actually Anton Mang (born September 29, 1949 in Inning am Ammersee ) is a former German motorcycle racer and five-time motorcycle world champion as well as a former child actor .

Career

The young Toni Mang had his first public appearances between 1956 and 1959 in film . During this time he was in at least four tales - movies on display, including 1959 alongside Peter Thom in a leading role of The Bremen Town Musicians . After that, however, he turned his back on the film.

At the age of eleven, Mang made his first motorcycle experiences with a DKW RT 125 , but then initially practiced another sport. He skied relatively successfully in the skibob and at the age of 16 became German skibob champion and junior European champion. Nevertheless, he soon turned to motorized racing and completed his first motorcycle road race two years later with a 50 cm³ self-made construction based on Kreidler , but retired in seventh place with a technical defect.

In 1970 Mang and Sepp Schlögl joined the team of the then reigning 125 cc world champion Dieter Braun as a racing mechanic. Together with Schlögl and Alfons Zender, Mang developed a motorcycle called the "Schlögl-Mang-Zender" (SMZ 250). On this machine he started at an airfield race in Augsburg and won his first victory there. In 1975 Anton Mang became German champion for the first time on a 350 cm³ Yamaha , in the same year he competed for the first time in the 350 cm³ class in a world championship run at the Austrian Grand Prix on the Salzburgring . A year later, in 1976 , he won his first race in the World Cup, the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring on a 125 cc Morbidelli .

One of Toni Mang's racing machines

His success enabled Toni Mang to start as a factory driver for Kawasaki in the classes up to 250 and 350 cm³ in 1978 . This started his path to becoming the most successful German motorcycle racer. In the 1980 season he was world champion in the 250 cm³ class and runner-up in the 350 cm³ class, just behind the South African Jon Ekerold . In 1981 Mang was world champion in both the 250 cm³ and the 350 cm³ class, and was then elected Sportsman of the Year 1981 in Germany. Toni Mang ended 1982 hardly less successful . He defended the world title in the 350 cm³ class with the Kawasaki KR 350 and is therefore considered the "eternal world champion" of this class, which was abolished after the 1982 season. At the end of the season, he was missing just one point to successfully defend his title in the 250 cc class. The Frenchman Jean-Louis Tournadre became the quarter liter world champion .

For the 1983 season, Mang moved to the so-called “premier class”, the 500 cc category. Due to a serious injury from a skiing accident before the start of the season, he was only able to compete in the first race in mid-August; with his “catch-up” he achieved tenth place. In 1984 Mang returned to the quarter-liter class without factory support. He finished fifth in the world championship on a private 250cc Yamaha. After this success he received a works Honda for the first time in 1985 and was runner-up behind the No. 1 in the Honda works team, the young American Freddie Spencer . In the 1986 season Mang met many strong drivers and finished fourth in the world championship. In addition, this season he separated from Sepp Schlögl, his long-time chief mechanic and friend. Then experts in the trade press prophesied the end of the Mang era.

Nonetheless, Toni Mang managed to finish the 1987 season as motorcycle world champion in the 250 cc class; he won eight races, his toughest rival was his compatriot Reinhold Roth . The racing year 1988 began with a victory, but after a serious fall at the Grand Prix of Yugoslavia in Rijeka , Toni Mang ended his career after a total of 154 starts in the motorcycle world championship, 42 wins , 84 podium places, 34 pole positions and 26 fastest race laps .

After the end of his career as an active motorcycle racing driver, Toni Mang has dedicated himself to promoting young talent and organizes racing training courses.

Since 2007 Toni Mang, together with Sepp Schlögl and Adi Stadler, has been supporting the then young German racing driver Marcel Schrötter , who won the International German Motorcycle Championship in the class up to 125 cm³ in the 2008 season on a Honda and defended his title in 2009.

Personal

Toni Mang is a trained toolmaker and has his own workshop with various machines for metal processing , in which he carries out contract work in the fields of pneumatics , vacuum technology and hydraulics . He has already developed several technical devices, including an electronic sewer testing device and a drilling device for attachment to a mini excavator .

In his birthplace Inning am Ammersee the Toni-Mang-Ring is named after him.

After marrying a South African woman in 1985, Mang is married for the second time and has a daughter.

statistics

title

• 250 cc world champion : 1980 , 1981 (on Kawasaki ) ; 1987 (on Honda )
• 350 cm³ World Champion : 1981 , 1982 (on Kawasaki)
• German 250 cm³ champion : 1979 (on Kawasaki)
• German 350 cc champion : 1977 (on a Yamaha ) ; 1978, 1979 (on Kawasaki)
• 42 Grand Prix victories
• Induction into the MotoGP Hall of Fame

In the motorcycle world championship

season	class	motorcycle	run	Victories	Second	Third	Poles	Nice Race laps	Points	position
1975	350 cc	SMZ	1	-	-	-	-	-	5	26th
1976	125 cc	Morbidelli	4th	1	-	-	-	1	32	5.
1977	125 cc	Morbidelli	7th	-	1	2	-	-	55	5.
	500 cc	Suzuki	2	-	-	-	-	-	4th	25th
1978	250 cc	Kawasaki	8th	1	1	-	-	2	52	5.
	350 cc	Kawasaki	3	-	-	-	-	-	14th	16.
1979	250 cc	Kawasaki	8th	-	-	2	1	-	56	6th
	350 cc	Kawasaki	7th	-	2	1	-	-	63	4th
1980	250 cc	Kawasaki	10	4th	4th	2	9	4th	128	World Champion
	350 cc	Kawasaki	5	2	1	1	4th	-	60	2.
1981	250 cc	Kawasaki	11	10	-	1	10	9	160	World Champion
	350 cc	Kawasaki	8th	5	2	-	6th	-	103	World Champion
1982	250 cc	Kawasaki	10	5	2	1	2	3	117	2.
	350 cc	Kawasaki	7th	1	4th	1	1	-	81	World Champion
1983	500 cc	Suzuki	4th	-	-	-	-	-	2	18th
1984	250 cc	Yamaha	12	1	1	-	-	2	61	5.
1985	250 cc	Honda	12	2	4th	4th	-	1	124	2.
1986	250 cc	Honda	10	1	3	-	-	1	65	4th
1987	250 cc	Honda	15th	8th	-	-	1	1	136	World Champion
1988	250 cc	Honda	10	1	-	2	-	2	87	8th.
total			154	42	25th	17th	34	26th	1405	5 world titles

Filmography

• 1956: The Brownies ; Director: Erich Kobler
• 1957: The wolf and the seven little goats ; Director: Peter Podehl
• 1957: Rübezahl - Lord of the Mountains ; Director: Erich Kobler
• 1959: The Bremen Town Musicians ; Director: Rainer Geis

Awards

• ADAC Motorsportman of the Year : 1981
• Sportsman of the year : 1981

References

literature

• Peter M. Lill: Toni Mang . World champion on two wheels. Copress-Verlag, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-7679-0165-X .

Web links

Commons : Toni Mang  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Anton Mang in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Official website of Toni Mang
• Toni Mang on the official website of the Motorcycle World Championship (English).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Technology. www.toni-mang.de, accessed on August 3, 2010 . 
2. ↑ Spiegel.de . Retrieved September 12, 2019.
3. ^ Homepage of Anton Mang . Retrieved September 12, 2019.