MotoGP | GP Brno: Did you know that…

At the Sachsenring, Marc Marquez won his fifth race of the season out of nine contested. In the MotoGP era since 2002, the rider who won at least five of the first nine races went on to win the title: Valentino Rossi (8 – 2002, 5 – 2004 and 7 – 2005), Casey Stoner (5 – 2007), Jorge Lorenzo (6 – 2010 and 5 – 2012) and Marc Marquez (9 – 2014).

In Brno Marc Marquez will start for the 100th time in the MotoGP class out of 178 in total. At 25 years and 169 days he will become the second youngest rider to reach the milestone of 100 GPs in the premier class after John Hopkins (24 years, 348 days).

From his 99 starts in the MotoGP class, Marquez has won 40 times, finished on the podium 70 times and qualified on pole position on 48 occasions.

Valentino Rossi crossed the finish line in second place in the German GP, ​​his best result since second place in last year's Australian GP. With this second place, Rossi equaled Yamaha's best result in 2018, achieved by Johann Zarco and Maverick Vinales.

In the Czech GP, Valentino Rossi will try to become the first rider in history to reach the 6000 points milestone. With second place at the Sachsenring, he reached 5994 points since the start of his career. His closest opponents are Dani Pedrosa with 4094 points and Jorge Lorenzo with 3869.

The GP of the Czech Republic will see Valentino Rossi line up in Brno for the twenty-third consecutive year. It will be the second circuit together with Jerez where he has always raced.

Maverick Vinales is the only rider to have scored points in all nine races of the 2018 MotoGP. He has scored points in the last 19 races. The last time he failed to score was at Assen last year when he crashed on the twelfth lap of the race in the final chicane.

Yamaha riders have not won since Assen 2017 (Valentino Rossi won) and there have been 19 consecutive races without success. The last time the Iwata company had a greater losing streak was the sequence of 22 races included between the 15 races of 1997 and the first 7 races of 1998.

Alvaro Bautista is the 15th driver to reach the 2000 point milestone. He crossed the finish line of the German GP in fifth place, his best result since the Italian GP last year.

At the Sachsenring Bautista equaled it Angel grandson and Alex De Angelis with 265 Grands Prix contested. In Brno, his 150th start in the premier class is scheduled.

In the GP of the Czech Republic, Andrea Dovizioso will try to become the sixth rider in history to reach the milestone of 2000 points obtained in the Top Class. After the German GP, ​​he has 1995 points. For him, Brno will be his 100th start with Ducati.

Bradley Smith crossed the finish line in tenth place in the German GP, ​​equaling the best result by a KTM rider, achieved by Mika Kallio in Jerez at the start of the season.

Franco Morbidelli missed the German GP due to an injury to his left hand in free practice at Assen. Hafizh Syahrin, his closest rival in the fight for "Rookie of the Year", crossed the finish line at the Sachsenring in 11th place, taking home five points, which allowed him to take the lead in the special classification.

The only one of the five rookies in the MotoGP class who has already won in Brno is Tom Lüthi, winner last year in Moto2 and in 2005 in the 125cc class.