The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship heads to the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours for Round 8 of the 2024 season, with plenty of records and milestones to be hit. We’ve gathered some of the key numbers ahead of the Motul French Round in one place for you to make sure you have all the info you need ahead of track action.
150 – An important milestone lies ahead for Garrett Gerloff: his next start will be his 150th in WorldSBK: he will be the second U.S. rider to reach this goal after Colin Edwards (175 starts).
71 – Toprak Razgatlioglu’s partnership with BMW is running at record pace. He has won 15 races out of 21 so far (71.4%). Among the riders who raced at least 20 times for a manufacturer, his best rival is Ben Spies with Yamaha: 14 out of 28 (50%). Doug Polen (26/54, 48.1%) and Alvaro Bautista (61/129, 47.2%) follow for Ducati.
54/59 – Current bike #54 counts 54 WorldSBK wins and while Carl Fogarty is temporarily out of reach in Magny-Cours (59 wins: 3rd all-time spot), the countdown has started!
49 – Milestones in pairs: the next race at Magny-Cours will be the 50th held here, the next podium for Ducati, the 50th at this track.
49 – With 49 races run, Magny-Cours sits in fifth place among the most visited tracks. The record belongs to Phillip Island at 70.
49 – 49 podium places for Ducati at this track, the record value for Magny-Cours. Kawasaki follows at 34 and Yamaha at 32.
28/32 – Countdown time also for BMW: 28 wins so far, four shy of 6th in the all-time list held by Suzuki.
21 – Nicolo Bulega is on a streak of 21 points finishes, all races since his debut. No other rookie had managed this feat before him.
11/20 – Bulega has passed the halfway mark towards the record of second places in a season: he counts 11 now, with his title rival Razgatlioglu holding the record at 20, set last year. The second all-time value is 16 by Jonathan Rea in 2019, the third is 12 (Scott Russell 1993; Alvaro Bautista 2022).
23 – The most successful French rider in WorldSBK history is 1990 World Champion, Raymond Roche: he won 23 races from 1989 to 1992. He won twice in France but at Le Mans, back in 1990.
20 – Great Britain is the most successful country at Magny-Cours with 20 wins. The next best country is Turkey at 8, all by Razgatlioglu.
20-38 – Magny-Cours so far has seen no fewer than 20 winners and 38 podium finishers out of 49 races. These counts didn’t improve last year, as the winners (Razgatlioglu, Bautista) and podium finishers (Bautista, Razgatlioglu, Rea, Rinaldi) had all been winners and podium finishers here before.
19-1 – Despite being the most successful manufacturer here with 19 wins, Ducati recorded only one pole, in 2003 with James Toseland – his maiden career pole.
16 – In 2019, Razgatlioglu set a new record for winning from the lowest grid spot at Magny-Cours as he won from 16th, and he did it twice: in Race 1 and in the Tissot Superpole Race. No one has won from such a distant grid spot since.
13-16 – Razgatlioglu is on a winning streak of 13 races, a record for WorldSBK. He has the potential to make it as high as 16 in France.
12-11 – The best grid spot for winning? Seems to be 2nd, as from here the race was won 12 times, one more than from pole position.
10 – After a run of 10 editions with only British riders topping Superpole at Magny-Cours (2010-2019), Irishman Eugene Laverty stole the top spot in Superpole in 2020. The British record run: Cal Crutchlow (2010), Jonathan Rea (2011, 2016, 2017, 2019), Tom Sykes (2012 to 2014 and 2018), Leon Haslam (2015).
10 – Kawasaki holds the pole record with ten, the last one in 2022 with Rea. That is more than three times the value of its nearest competitors, Yamaha, and Honda at 3.
9 – Rea is the most successful rider here with 9 wins, followed by Toprak Razgatlioglu at 8 and Noriyuki Haga at 5.
8 – The record run of wins for Great Britain is 8, from 2015 Race 1 to 2018 Race 2 (5 for Rea, 3 for Davies).
7 – Last year, this was the first track in which Razgatlioglu recorded a 7th win; this year he can be the first one in which he reaches 10 (he is at 8 now).
7 – 7 different manufacturers have claimed pole at Magny-Cours. Kawasaki took 9 from 2012 onwards, but the surprise in recent years was BMW, setting pole here in 2020 (Laverty) and last year (Gerloff).
5 – In 2021, Rea claimed the Magny-Cours pole-tally record, 5, taking it from his former team-mate Tom Sykes (4). In 2022, he improved the best value to 6.
4 – Only one rider was able to climb on the podium here for 4 different manufacturers: Marco Melandri (Yamaha in 2011, BMW in 2012, Aprilia in 2014 and Ducati in 2017).
4 – Only Razgatlioglu has managed 4 straight wins in Magny-Cours (2022/SPR – 2023/SPR).
1 – The only French winner at Magny-Cours is Sylvain Guintoli (2012 Race 1 for Ducati; 2014 Race 1 for Aprilia).
0.5 – The closest Championship finish of all-time came at Magny-Cours in 2012, with Max Biaggi beating Tom Sykes to the title by just half a point.
0.000 – In 2022, a new record for the smallest gap between polesitter and 2nd on the grid was set in Magny-Cours, as Jonathan Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu recorded exactly the same time, down to the smallest possible digit. Pole position was thus decided by the second-best lap time in favour of Rea.
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Source: WorldSBK.com