The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship is ready for a ride around the famous rollercoaster that is the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve and there’s a chance history could be made during the Pirelli Portuguese Round. Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) is aiming for the record winning streak in Portugal, Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) will be hoping for his 100th podium and there are more milestones that could be hit…
100 – Alvaro Bautista is only one podium short of reaching 100: he would be the 7th rider in history to reach this milestone after Jonathan Rea (264 podiums), Troy Corser and Toprak Razgatlioglu (130), Noriyuki Haga (116), Tom Sykes (114), Carl Fogarty (109).
51/52 – Toprak Razgatlioglu, with a full sweep of wins in Misano, Donington and Most, has gone from being behind Noriyuki Haga (43 wins) in sixth in the all-time list, to one win shy of fourth, occupied by Troy Bayliss (52).
50% – BMW are just one win shy of recording half of their total WorldSBK wins in this season. So far, they’ve won 25 times, 12 of those this year. It’s all down to Razgatlioglu: he is the only BMW rider on the podium so far this season.
48 – 48 races have been run on Portuguese soil so far. The first one came in 1988, at the Estoril track, and were won by Davide Tardozzi and Stephane Mertens, both on a Bimota.
35 – Jonathan Rea is the only rider who has raced in all 35 WorldSBK races held at Portimao since the track entered the WorldSBK Championship in 2008.
25 – Jonathan Rea is the record holder for podium finishes here: no fewer than 25 out of 35 races contested. His next competitor is Toprak Razgatlioglu at 10.
25 – A front row start has a great importance at Portimao as 25 wins out of 35 came from there.
18 – Nicolo Bulega is on a streak of 18 points finishes, all races since his debut. No other rookie had managed this feat before him.
15 – Great Britain is the most successful country at Portimao, with 15 wins to Italy’s and Spain’s 5.
10/20 – Nicolo Bulega has posted 11 podiums so far, 10 of them are second places. The record of second places in a single season was set last year by Toprak Razgatlioglu: 20. In the current run of Razgatlioglu’s 10 wins, Bulega was second 7 times.
11 – BMW are on a run of 10 wins: at 11 they will match the 3rd all-time streak for a manufacturer, recorded no less than five times, the last one by Ducati from Magny-Cours 2023/2 to Phillip Island 2024/1.
7/9 – Alex Lowes is just two podiums short of his best season, 2019 (9 podiums): he has already scored more points than the entire of last season.
13 – Jonathan Rea has won 13 times here, the second-best value for himself and for any given rider on any track in WorldSBK history after his 17 wins at Assen.
12 – So far, there have been no fewer than 12 different winners at Portimao. The last two added to this list are Michael van Der Mark and Toprak Razgatlioglu in 2021.
10/11/12 – Toprak Razgatlioglu is on a 10-race winning run, one behind the all-time record held by Alvaro Bautista (2019, 2023) and Jonathan Rea (2019). Victory in Race 1 at Portimao would equal this record, victory in Race 1 and the Tissot Superpole Race would hand ‘El Turco’ the record.
8/9 – The longest winning streak for a manufacturer here is eight by Kawasaki, all by Jonathan Rea from 2015’s Race 1 to 2019’s Tissot Superpole Race. Rea adds to those a win for Honda in Race 2, 2014, making the longest streak for a rider here at 9 races long. That is an all-time record streak for WorldSBK, level with Tom Sykes at Donington Park from 2013 Race 1 to 2017 Race 1.
6/7 – Seven different manufacturers have been able to record at least a podium placement at Portimao: (Ducati, Honda, Aprilia, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Suzuki, BMW). Six of them are winners: Kawasaki, Ducati, Aprilia, Yamaha, BMW, Honda.
6 – Jonathan Rea is the record holder also for poles here, 6, followed by Tom Sykes at 3.
6 – The last 6 races run here had only 2 riders in the first two spots: Alvaro Bautista and Toprak Razgatlioglu, 4 times in the last 4 run, in inverted order in the first two races of 2022.
2 – Yamaha are the only manufacturer to have recorded pole in consecutive years with two different riders in Algarve: in 2009 with Ben Spies and in 2010 with Cal Crutchlow, making it with two different nationalities too.
1 –Jonathan Rea debuted in the WorldSBK Championship in 2008 at Portimao, which was the last weekend of the season. He came from the World Supersport Championship, and recorded the third-best time in Superpole, finishing 4th in Race 1. In Race 2, he was 15th after an off-track excursion whilst running 5th.
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Source: WorldSBK.com