MotoGP 2014 – Gran Premio bwin de España – Jerez – Official statistics compiled by Dr. Martin Raines
Jerez has hosted a Grand Prix event on 27 previous occasions. Below are some facts and figures from these previous Grand Prix races at Jerez:
- This will be the 28th successive year that a Grand Prix event has been held at the Jerez circuit since it was first used in 1987; Assen is the only current venue that has been used consecutively for a longer period than Jerez
- A total of 83 Grands Prix for solo motorcycles have been held at Jerez, as follows: MotoGP – 12, 500cc – 15, Moto2 – 4, 250cc – 23, Moto3TM – 2, 125cc – 24 and 80cc – 3
- Spanish riders have been the most successful at the Jerez circuit, having taken a total of 28 Grand Prix victories across all classes
- Spanish riders won all three races at Jerez last year: Dani Pedrosa in MotoGP, Tito Rabat in Moto2 and Maverick Viñales in Moto3
- Jerez has been the most successful circuit for Spanish riders in terms of premier class victories, with a total of nine wins: Alberto Puig in 1995, Alex Criville in 1997, ’98 and ‘99, Sete Gibernau in 2004, Dani Pedrosa in 2008 & ‘13 and Jorge Lorenzo in 2010 – 11
- Alberto Puig’s victory in 1995 marked the first time a Spaniard had won a premier class Grand Prix on home turf
- Valentino Rossi is the most successful rider at Jerez, with eight victories to his name: single wins in both the 125 and 250 classes and six in the premier tier
- Since the introduction of the MotoGP class in 2002, Honda have had six victories at Jerez, Yamaha five and Ducati one – Ducati’s being with Loris Capirossi in 2006
- No premier class rider has won the Spanish GP from pole since Capirossi did so in 2006
- Since the MotoGP class was introduced in 2002, in only one season has the Spanish GP not witnessed a home winner and this was in 2009: Valentino Rossi (Italy) won in MotoGP, Hiroshi Aoyama (Japan) in 250cc and Bradley Smith (Great Britain) in 125cc
A 200th Grand Prix start for Jorge Lorenzo…
Jorge Lorenzo is scheduled to make his 200th career Grand Prix start at the Spanish GP. Below are some of the highlights and facts on his Grand Prix career to date:
- Lorenzo set a new record at his very first 125 race – the Spanish Grand Prix in 2002: he became the youngest ever rider to compete in Grand Prix, just one day after his 15th birthday. He was not allowed to take part in the first day of qualifying because he had still not attained the minimum age of 15
- Lorenzo is the 23rd rider to reach the milestone of 200 Grand Prix starts across all classes in the 65 – year history of Grand Prix racing
- Lorenzo will celebrate his 27th birthday on race day and is scheduled to become the youngest rider to reach the milestone of 200 GP starts, taking the record from Andrea Dovizioso who made his 200th start in Aragon last year at the age of 27 years, 190 days
- From his first 199 Grands Prix, Lorenzo has won on 52 occasions (a 26.1% win rate), been on the podium 113 times (56.8%) and finished in the top six on 138 occasions (69.3%). He has also started from pole for 55 (27.6%) of the his Grands Prix to date
- During his Grand Prix career, Lorenzo has competed at 26 different circuits and has won at least once at 19 of them. The circuits on which he has competed but not won a Grand Prix in any of the three classes are: Aragon, Austin, Istanbul, Sachsenring, Suzuka, Welkom and recent addition Termas de Rio Hondo
…and a 100th Grand Prix start for Marc Marquez
At the Spanish Grand Prix, Marc Marquez is scheduled to make the 100th start of his Grand Prix career. Below are some facts and figures relating to his Grand Prix career so far:
- At the age of just 21 years and 76 days, Marquez is the fourth – youngest rider ever to reach the milestone of 100 GP starts, after Scott Redding, Jorge Lorenzo and Sandro Cortese
- In his 99 Grands Prix to date, he has taken 35 wins (a win rate of 35.3%) and a total of 58 podium finishes (58.6%). He has started from pole position on 40 occasions (40.4%)
- Marquez has raced at 22 different circuits during his Grand Prix career to date and has won at 19 of them. At only three race tracks has he competed but failed to win: one is this weekend’s host venue of Jerez, while the other two are Donington Park and Shanghai
- He did not stand on the top step of the podium until his 33rd race, when his first win came in the 125 Grand Prix at Mugello, Italy in 2010. Since then, however, Marquez has won 35 times from 67 starts – a win rate of 52.2%
Dani Pedrosa set to equal podium count of Giacomo Agostini
Dani Pedrosa’s second place in Argentina signalled the 87th time that he had stood on the podium since moving up to the MotoGP class in 2006. As shown in the table below, this is just one less premier class podium than eight – time 500 World Champion Giacomo Agostini:
Moto2 stats and trivia
- While Tito Rabat’s victory in Argentina was his second win from three races in 2014, second place marked a second career Moto2 podium for Xavier Simeon while third-placed finisher Luis Salom was able to stand on the intermediate class rostrum for the very first time
- Starting from pole position, Rabat led every one of the 23 laps in Argentina last weekend
- A championship lead of 28 points (over team-mate Mika Kallio) means that Rabat will head to the following race in France as the championship leader, no matter what happens in Spain; incidentally, Jerez marks a return to the track where Rabat won for the first time in 2013
- Only once since the Moto2 class debuted in 2010 has the Jerez race winner gone on to claim the world title; this was in 2010 itself, when Toni Elias picked up his first win of the season
- Ratthapark Wilairot returns to the World Championship in Jerez, covering for the injured Josh Herrin at AirAsia Caterham Moto Racing. Thai rider Wilairot originally raced full-time in the intermediate category of the World Championship from 2007 before electing to retire after last year’s German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring; during that time he achieved two front row starts, one coming in Spain at the 2009 season-closer of the 250 class in Valencia
- Malaysian rider Hafizh Syahrin will celebrate his 20th birthday on the Monday after the race
Moto3 stats and trivia
- Last time out in Argentina, Romano Fenati won for the second time in his career – his maiden victory had come in the Moto3 Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez in 2012. Last weekend’s result also marked the first ever victory for SKY Racing Team VR46, which is new in 2013, and ended a run of two consecutive Grand Prix victories for championship leader Jack Miller
- After the race in Termas de Rio Hondo, winner Fenati was handed one penalty point following contact with Miller in an attempt to seize the lead at the penultimate corner
- Alex Marquez returned to the podium in Argentina courtesy of his second second-place finish from the first three Grands Prix of 2014 – this marked the seventh podium finish of his career
- Since the Moto3 class was launched in 2012, each season’s World Champion has always finished on the podium at Jerez: Sandro Cortese was third in 2012, while Maverick Viñales won the race last year
- Last year’s Moto3 Spanish GP was shorted due to a red flag for Frenchman Alan Techer’s crash, with the race result therefore counting from the end of the 15th lap
- KTM could celebrate its 50th win in Grand Prix racing, should the Austrian marque claim the top spot of the podium in this weekend’s 23-lap Moto3 encounter
- German rider Philipp Oettl will celebrate his 18th birthday on qualifying day in Spain. Incidentally, Philipp’s father Peter was twice a podium finisher in Jerez: third in the 80cc race of 1989 and second in the 125cc race of 1994
Grand Prix racing numbers
- 56.570 seconds – Michael Laverty, who finished 18th in Argentina, finished just 56.570 seconds behind winner Marc Marquez; this was just the second time in the 65 – year history of motorcycle Grand Prix racing that the first 18 riders across the finish line in a premier class GP have finished within one minute of each other. The other occasion was Malaysia 2007, when 18th place finisher Makoto Tamada was 59.596 seconds behind winner Casey Stoner
- 49 – Romano Fenati’s victory in the Argentine Moto3 race was the 49th GP win for KTM. Casey Stoner gave KTM their first win, in the 125 class in Malaysia in 2004. The breakdown of the 49 Grand Prix wins from KTM is: 125cc – 13, Moto3 – 27 wins and 250cc – 9
- 45 years – On race day at Jerez it will be exactly 45 years since another Spanish circuit, Jarama, was first used for a Grand Prix event – to host the 1969 Spanish Grand Prix. The home crowd had plenty to celebrate when Santiago Herrero (Ossa) became the first Spanish rider to win a 250cc race
- 27th birthday – Jorge Lorenzo celebrates his 27th birthday on race day
- 17 years – On race day, it will be exactly 17 to the day since Alex Criville won the 1997 500cc GP at Jerez – the first in a sequence of three successive wins at the circuit for Criville
- 6th – Andrea Iannone finished 6th in Argentina, which is the best result for a satellite Ducati since Randy de Puniet was sixth at the Australian GP in 2011, also riding a Pramac Ducati
- 3 – Tito Rabat is only the third rider in the Moto2 class to start the season with podium finishes at the opening three races of the year; the other riders to have done this are Marc Marquez and Pol Espargaro, both in 2012. If Rabat finishes in the top three at Jerez, he will be the first rider in the Moto2 class to start the season with four successive podium finishes
- 3 – In Argentina, Marc Marquez became the first rider to win the opening three premier class races of a season since Valentino Rossi in 2001; if he also wins in Jerez, he will become the first rider to win the opening four premier class races of a season since Mick Doohan in 1992
- 3 – Marquez has not only won the opening three races, but all from pole position; the last rider to win three successive MotoGP races from pole was Jorge Lorenzo in 2010. If Marquez wins from pole in Jerez, he will be the first rider to win four successive MotoGP races from pole since Valentino Rossi – in the final three races of 2003 and the opening race of 2004
- 1 – Jerez is the only circuit on the current Grand Prix calendar on which Marc Marquez has never been able to celebrate a race victory in any of the three classes
