With 14 victories Dani Pedrosa is now the most successful rider in the premier class (500/MotoGP) not to have won the title. He overtook Randy Mamola and Max Biaggi who had both won 13 events. Pedrosa’s German success means he drew Honda level with Yamaha for most wins in the four-stroke MotoGP era; the brands are tied on 65 each.

Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden are now in the top ten of the riders who have made the most appearances in the premier class with 145 and 143 each respectively. Alex Barros has the most with 245…

150 – At the US GP, Hector Barbera will be making his 150th Grand Prix start, which includes 47 in the 125cc class and 75 in the 250cc class.

51 years – On race day at Laguna Seca it will be exactly 51 years since Kenjiro Tanaka finished third in the 250cc race at the 1960 German Grand Prix at the Solitude circuit, giving Honda their first ever podium finish in Grand Prix racing.

51 – Both Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner have stood on the podium on 51 occasions in their MotoGP careers. This is the same number of podium finishes in the premier-class as both 1993 world champion Kevin Schwantz and 1999 world champion Alex Criville.

20 – Valentino Rossi has finished in the top nine in all 20 races since returning from injury at the German Grand Prix last year.

17 years – On race day at Laguna Seca it will be 17 years ago to the day that Kevin Schwantz won the 500cc GP race at Donington in 1994 after suffering a huge high-side crash during practice. This was the last of Schwantz’s 25 Grand Prix victories.

7 – Of the twelve premier-class races held at Laguna Seca, seven have been won by riders from the USA. 7 – Casey Stoner has finished on the podium at the last seven races – his longest sequence of successive podium finishes in Grand Prix racing

5 – It has been five years since an American rider has finished on the podium at the Laguna Seca MotoGP race. The last MotoGP podium for an American rider at the circuit was Nicky Hayden’s victory in 2006.

4 – Four of the riders competing in MotoGP this year have raced at all the previous six MotoGP races at Laguna Seca since the return to the circuit in 2005: Loris Capirossi, Colin Edwards, Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi.

4 – The last four MotoGP races have been won by four different riders: Casey Stoner, Ben Spies, Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa. The last time that there has been four different MotoGP winners in four successive races was at the final two races of the 2009 season and the first two races of 2010: Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa, Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo. If there is another different race winner at Laguna Seca it will be the first time since the end of the 2006 start of the 2007 season when there has been a sequence of five different MotoGP winners. On that occasion the sequence stretched to six different winners, over the final five races of 2006 and the first of 2007: Valentino Rossi, Marco Melandri, Loris Capirossi, Toni Elias, Troy Bayliss and Casey Stoner.

3 – Since returning to Laguna Seca in 2005 with the 4-stroke MotoGP machines, Honda have been the most suc- cessful manufacturer with three wins. Yamaha riders have taken two victories and a single win has gone to Ducati.