MotoGP: It’s Valentino Rossi’s 400th MotoGP start this weekend in Australia. Here’s 8 great motorcycle stats going into it.

At the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix this weekend, Valentino Rossi is scheduled to become the first rider in the 70-year history of motorcycle Grand Prix racing to reach 400 GP starts.

Here’s 8 great stats about Rossi’s long career in Grand Prix racing:

• He has taken part in 399 of the 939 Grand Prix events staged since the start of the World Championship series back in 1949. This means that he has taken part in 42.5% of all Grand Prix events.

• He has finished in a point-scoring position a record 353 times in the 399 GP races that he has started.

• Rossi has won GP races on seven different motorcycles: 125cc Aprilia, 250cc Aprilia, 500cc Honda, 990cc Honda, 990cc Yamaha, 800cc Yamaha and 1000cc Yamaha.

• He is the only rider to have won on 500cc two-stroke, 990cc four-stroke and 800cc four-stroke and 1000cc four-stroke machines.

• During his career Rossi has competed at 38 different Grand Prix circuits. Of these 38 circuits, he has taken at least one GP win at 29 of them. No other rider in the history of motorcycle Grand Prix racing has won at as many different circuits as Rossi. His closest rival is Mick Doohan with 24.

• The circuits at which Rossi has had most GP wins is Catalunya and Assen, where he has won 10 times at each of them.

• The circuits at which Rossi has made most Grand Prix appearances are Jerez and Brno, where he has made 24 GP starts across the three classes.

• Rossi’s victory at the Dutch TT back in 2017, 20 years and 311 days after his first GP win in the 125 class at Brno in 1996, made him the rider with the longest winning career across all classes.