MotoGP racing numbers for round three

Thursday, 30 April 2009

The Gran Premio bwin.com de España racing numbers from the motogp.com statisticians.

500 – Valentino Rossi’s second place finish in Japan was the 500th podium finish for Yamaha in the premier-class. The first rider to finish on the podium in the premier-class riding a Yamaha was Christian Bourgeois at the French GP in 1972 at Clermont-Ferrand.

100 – At the Spanish GP Marco Melandri will be making his 100th Grand Prix start in the premier-class. In addition he has also made 47 GP starts in the 250cc class and 29 on a 125cc machine.

63 – Valentino Rossi’s second place finish in Japan was his 63rd podium since joining Yamaha at the start of 2004. One more top three finish and he will equal the record number of premier-class podiums on Yamaha achieved by Wayne Rainey.

45 years – The day of the Spanish GP will be the 45th anniversary of Angel Nieto finishing fifth on his Grand Prix debut in the 50cc race at the Spanish GP held at Montjuic circuit in Barcelona in 1964.

22 – Jorge Lorenzo will celebrate his 22nd birthday on the day after the Spanish Grand Prix.

11 – Rossi has finished on the podium at the last 11 races – his longest sequence of successive podiums since 2005.

6 – At the first two races of the year six different riders have finished on the podium in the 250cc class.