On 2 July 1989, Jeff Leisk was the overall winner of the 500cc Motocross Grand Prix in the San Marino, near Italy.

The Team Honda rider from Perth in Western Australia won the opening moto in Round 8 of the World 500cc Motocross Championship, then finished second to his Honda team mate Dave Thorpe (UK) in the second to score the most points on the day.  It was his second ever Grand Prix win, notching up his first in Finland three months earlier on 28 May 1989 – at the time becoming the first Australian to achieve this feat.

Leisk won the first of the two 45 minute plus one lap motos ahead of American Billy Liles (Kawasaki), who was riding that year under a Luxemburg license, with Thorpe in third.  Dutchman Kees Van der Ven (KTM) finished fourth ahead of Englishman Kurt Nicholl (Kawasaki) with the current points leader and multiple World Champion Eric Geboers (Belgium, Honda) only just scraping into the points.

Leisk finished a close second to Thorpe in Moto 2, which was run in patchy wet conditions.  Knowing that Thorpe finished third in Moto 1, Leisk only needed to hold his position without taking any risks to win the round.  Geboers recovered in Moto 2 to finish third ahead of Van der Ven and Nicol.

Leisk’s win escalated him to third in the World Championship on 186 points, just 15 points behind Thorpe in second (201) and 25 points behind the leader Geboers (211).  Thorpe would go on to have an incredible finish to the season – winning the last four rounds convincingly to overtake Geboers and win the 1989 World 500cc Motocross Championship.   In his first full season, Leisk finished second to Thorpe and ahead of Geboers – making it a 1-2-3 finish for Honda.