Valencia MotoGP Statistical Snapshot

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Gran Premio Motul de la Comunitat Valenciana – Official statistics compiled by Dr. Martin Raines

This year will be the 18th Grand Prix of Valencia, which has been held every year at the Ricardo Tormo circuit since the first visit in 1999 and below are some facts and stats related to this event.

This will be the 15th successive year that Valencia has hosted the final race of the season, making it the circuit that has been the venue for the final event of the year on most occasions.
The Valencia circuit is named after Spanish racer Ricardo Tormo, who won the 50cc world title riding for Bultaco in 1978 and 1981. In addition to his 15 Grand Prix victories in the 50cc class he also had 4 wins in the 125cc class. His career ended in 1984 due to leg injuries suffered in a crash whilst test riding. Tormo sadly died from leukaemia in 1998.
Dani Pedrosa is the most successful rider at the Valencia circuit with six wins; three in MotoGP, two in 250cc, and one in the 125cc class. Pedrosa has won twice as many GP races at the Valencia circuit than the next most successful riders who are: Casey Stoner (1 x 125cc, 2 x MotoGP) and Jorge Lorenzo (3 x MotoGP).

Dani Pedrosa on the top step of the podium at Valencia MotoGP in 2009 ahead of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo

The premier-class race at Valencia has been won eight times by Spanish riders; Sete Gibernau won the 500cc race on a Suzuki in 2001; Dani Pedrosa won the MotoGP race in 2007, 2009 and 2012; Jorge Lorenzo won in 2010, 2013 and 2015; Marc Marquez won two years ago.
Since the introduction of the four-stroke MotoGP formula in 2002, Honda has been the most successful manufacturer with eight victories at the Valencia circuit. Yamaha has had four wins and Ducati two.
Andrea Dovizioso’s fourth place finish in 2014 is the best result for a Ducati rider at Valencia in the last five years.
Suzuki’s only podium at Valencia in the MotoGP era is third with John Hopkins in 2007.
The MotoGP race at Valencia has only once been won by a rider who has not qualified on the front row – Marc Marquez won the race in 2014 from fifth place on the grid.
Valentino Rossi is the only rider to have competed at all seventeen previous grand prix events that have taken place at the Ricardo Tormo circuit.
The last non-Spanish rider to win the MotoGP race in Valencia was Casey Stoner in 2011.

Casey Stoner - Valencia MotoGP 2011 - Image by AJRN — Casey Stoner – Valencia MotoGP 2011 – Image by AJRN

At least one of the three classes at the Valencia grand prix has been won by a Spanish rider for the last seven years.
The last time that the grand prix series arrived at the final race of the year in Valencia with all three titles already decided was in 2012.
Since the season finale has been held in Valencia, the three newly-crowned World Champions have never each won their final race of the year.

Two hundred and fifty grand prix starts for Jorge Lorenzo

At the Grand Prix of Valencia Jorge Lorenzo is scheduled to make his 250th grand prix start. As shown in the following table of riders with the greatest number of grand prix starts, he will be just the 11th rider in the 68 years of motorcycle grand prix racing to reach this milestone. At the age of 29 years 193 days he is the youngest rider to reach the milestone of 250 GP starts, taking the record from Andrea Dovizioso who reached the milestone earlier this year at the Austrian Grand Prix at the age of 30 years 144 days.

Long winning career for Andrea Dovizioso

Andrea Dovizioso’s win in Malaysia was more than twelve years after his very first grand prix win in the 125cc class at the opening race of 2004 at Welkom in South Africa. As shown in the following table, Dovizioso, now joins three other current riders (Rossi, Pedrosa and Lorenzo) on the following list of riders with the longest winning careers in the 68 years of motorcycle grand prix racing:

Rider First GP win Last GP win Length of winning GP career

Valentino Rossi 125cc/Czech/1996 MotoGP/Catalunya/2016 19 years 292 days
Loris Capirossi 125cc/GB/1990 MotoGP/Japan/2007 17 years 49 days
Angel Nieto 50cc/E. Germany/1969 80cc/France/1985 16 years 8 days
Dani Pedrosa 125cc/Dutch TT/2002 MotoGP/RSM/2016 14 years 74 days
Phil Read 350cc/GB/1961 500cc/Czech/1975 14 years 71 days
Loris Reggiani 125cc/GB/1980 250cc/Czech/1993 13 years 12 days
Jorge Lorenzo 125cc/Rio/2003 MotoGP/Italy/2016 12 years 245 days
Andrea Dovizioso 125cc/South Africa/2004 MotoGP/Malaysia/2016 12 years 195 days
Max Biaggi 250cc/South Africa/1992 MotoGP/Germany/2004 11 years 315 days
Toni Mang 125cc/W. Germany/1976 250cc/Japan/1988 11 years 211 days

Andrea Dovizoso - Donington 2009 - Image by AJRN — Andrea Dovizoso – Donington 2009 – Image by AJRN

Grand Prix racing numbers

191 – Maverick Viñales has scored a total of 191 world championship points during 2016, which is the highest score ever achieved in the MotoGP era by a Suzuki rider in one season, taking the record from John Hopkins in 2007 when he reached a total of 189 points.

144 – Jorge Lorenzo’s third place finish in Malaysia was the 144th time he has stood on the podium across the grand prix classes. This is the same number of GP podium finishes as his great rival Dani Pedrosa. Only Valentino Rossi (221) and Giacomo Agostini (159) have more top three grand prix finishes than these two Spanish rivals.

Jorge Lorenzo - Sepang 2016 - Images by AJRN — Jorge Lorenzo – Sepang 2016 – Images by AJRN

130 – Between his first MotoGP victory at Donington in 2009 and his win in Malaysia Dovizioso started 130 MotoGP races without a victory. The previous record highest number of races between premier-class grand prix wins was held by Alex Barros who took part in 94 500cc GP races between his first win at Jarama in 1993 and his second win at the Dutch TT in 2000.
34 – Andrea Dovizioso’s win in Malaysia was the 34th time he has stood on the podium in the premier-class of grand prix racing, the same number of premier-class podium finishes achieved by twice 500cc World Champion Phil Read during his grand prix career.

Andrea Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo - Sepang 2016 - Images by AJRN — Andrea Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo – Sepang 2016 – Images by AJRN

25 – Andrea Dovizioso is the 25th different winner this year across the three classes of grand prix racing, which is a new record for most different winners in a single season in the history of grand prix racing. Previously recorded was 24 different winners in 1974 when the grand prix series also included the 350cc and 50cc classes.
21 – Honda arrive at the final race of the year with a 21 point advantage in the MotoGP Constructors Championship which means if any Honda rider finishes 12th or better then Honda will win the premier-class Constructors title for the 22nd time.
10 – Andrea Dovizioso is just the tenth rider of the MotoGP era (starting in 2002) to win a MotoGP race from pole position and also setting the fastest lap of the race. Other riders to have achieved this are: Valentino Rossi, Marc Marquez, Casey Stoner, Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa, Loris Capirossi, Makoto Tamada, Andrea Iannone and Alex Barros.
10 – The last Yamaha rider to win a MotoGP race was Valentino Rossi at the Grand Prix of Catalunya; a run of nine races without a Yamaha win.

9 – At the Malaysian Grand Prix Andrea Dovizioso became the ninth different winner in the MotoGP class in 2016 (Lorenzo, Marquez, Rossi, Miller, Iannone, Crutchlow, Viñales, Pedrosa, Dovizioso) a new record for most different winners in a single season in the premier-class of grand prix racing. The previous record was eight different winners in a season in 2000: Kenny Roberts Jnr, Garry McCoy, Valentino Rossi, Max Biaggi, Alex Barros, Alex Criville, Loris Capirossi and Norick Abe.
8 – At Sepang Andrea Dovizioso became the eighth different Italian rider to stand on the top step of the podium in 2016 across the three GP classes (Valentino Rossi, Andrea Dovizioso, Andrea Iannone, Lorenzo Baldassarri, Francesco Bagnaia, Romano Fenati, Nicolo Antonelli, Enea Bastianini). This is the greatest number of different Italian GP winners in a season since 1992 when there were also eight different Italian winners (Luca Cadalora, Ezio Gianola, Pier Francesco Chili, Loris Reggiani, Alessandro Gramigni, Max Biaggi, Fausto Gresini and Bruno Casanova).
7 years 96 days – The time between Andrea Dovizioso’s two MotoGP victories. Only once has a rider had greater time gap between premier-class wins – Phil Read who won his first 500cc GP at the Ulster Grand Prix in 1964 riding a Norton and his second 500cc win was at the 1973 West German GP in 1973 riding a MV Agusta. However between these two wins Read only took part in four GP races in the 500cc class as he concentrated on racing in the smaller capacity classes.
3 – Andrea Dovizioso is the third Italian rider to win in the MotoGP class this year. The last time when three different Italian riders had MotoGP wins in the same season was 2006 when Valentino Rossi, Loris Capirossi and Marco Melandri all had wins.
2 – With his win in Malaysia on a Ducati adding to his victory at Donington riding a Honda, Andrea Dovizioso becomes just the fourth rider to win in the MotoGP class riding machines from two different manufacturers, joining: Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner and Max Biaggi.
2 – In Malaysia Dovizioso became the second rider to win on Ducati this year. The last time that Ducati had two different winners in the same season was 2007 with Casey Stoner and Loris Capirossi.

Moto2 stats and facts

The six Moto2 races that have taken place at the Valencia GP have been won by six different riders: 2010 – Karel Abraham, 2011 – Michele Pirro, 2012 – Marc Marquez, 2013 – Nico Terol, 2014 – Tom Luthi and 2015 – Tito Rabat.
Johann Zarco has twice finished on the podium at Valencia in the Moto2 class – third in both 2013 and 2014. Last year he finished seventh in Valencia after qualifying in second place on the grid. Zarco’s win in Malaysia was the 14th time he has stood on the top step of the podium in the Moto2 class, one more than 2013 Moto2 champion Tito Rabat. Only Marc Marquez has more Moto2 wins than Zarco, with sixteen.
Tom Luthi has finished on the podium for the last two years in Valencia: a race victory in 2014 and third last year.
Alex Rins finished third at Valencia in 2013 from pole position – his only podium at this circuit from his three years competing in the Moto3 class. Last year he finished second in Valencia just 0.309 seconds behind race winner Tito Rabat.
Franco Morbidelli, who has finished on the podium at the last four races, has not scored a point in his three previous appearances in Valencia: he finished 17th in 2013, and in 2014 he finished 21st after qualifying on the front row for the first time then crashing and re-starting. Last year he crashed in a multirider incident on the first lap and did not make the re-start.
Sam Lowes, who has failed to finish a race since winning in Aragon, was 7th at Valencia in 2014 and last year finished 5th at the final race of the year.
In addition to Tom Luthi mentioned above, other riders currently competing in Moto2 who have had grand prix wins in Valencia are: Simone Corsi (125cc -2008), Julian Simon (125cc – 2009), Danny Kent (Moto3 – 2012) and Miguel Oliveira (Moto3 – 2015).

Moto3 stats and facts

Arriving at the final race of the year Brad Binder has a lead of 130 points in the championship classification and has two records in his sight. One is the highest winning margin in the lightweight-class of grand prix racing which is currently the 111-point margin that Sandro Cortese topped the Moto3 championship table with in 2012. The other target is the record for the greatest championship winning margin in any class of grand prix racing, set by Valentino Rossi in 2005 when he won the world title with a 147-point margin over Marco Melandri.
None of the riders currently competing full-time in the Moto3 class have won a grand prix race at the Ricardo Tormo circuit.
All four Moto3 races that have taken place at Valencia have been won by KTM riders: 2012 – Danny Kent, 2013 – Maverick Viñales, 2014 – Jack Miller and 2015 – Miguel Oliveira.
The three riders in contention for the rookie of the year award in Moto3 are separated by just six points: Nicolo Bulega, Joan Mir and Fabio di Giannantonio. None of these three riders managed to pick up any points in Australia and only Di Giannantonio managed to score in Malaysia, a single point for finishing 15th.
Jorge Navarro finished second last year in Valencia, his equal best grand prix result of 2015.
Jakub Kornfeil’s second place in Malaysia was his first podium finish since he was third last year in Valencia.
Bo Bendsneyder is first Dutch rider to have more than a single podium in a single season in any class of GP racing since Wilco Zeelenberg in 1991 in the 250cc class. The last Dutch rider to have more than a single podium in one season in the lightweight-class of GP racing was Hans Spaan in 1990.