Heading to the Netherlands and to the TT Circuit Assen is always an honour for the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship and 2024 will be no different. The records are enormous but some of the history that could be made at this year’s Pirelli Dutch Round is rather remarkable. So, buckle up and take a look at just some of the magic numbers in play for round three of the season.
950 – WorldSBK is readying for its 950th race, scheduled for Race 2 this weekend. So far, there have been 79 different winners, 71 polesitters, 132 podium finishers, 598 points-scorers, 19 Champions and 8 winning manufacturers.
569 – Jonathan Rea (Pata Prometeon Yamaha) has amassed 569 points at Assen, an all-time record.
400/100 – Last year’s Race 2 was the 400th WorldSBK win for Ducati, achieved by Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati). This year, Spain could become the fifth country with 100 wins in WorldSBK, after Great Britain (307), USA (119), Australia (118), Italy (108).
94 – If Bautista gets a podium, he’ll match Troy Bayliss’ tally of 94.
35 – The Dutch track is a home for British wins: no less than 35 out of 65.
31-30 – Last year, Ducati upped their tally of Assen wins to 31, which is one more than the sum of its nearest rivals, Honda and Kawasaki at 15 each.
26 – 26 Dutch riders were able to start at least one WorldSBK race. The most successful is Michael van der Mark (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team), the only one able to record wins (5); poles (1); fastest laps (5) and podiums (40).
25/26 – Rea can equal and surpass his all-time record of podiums on a given track in WorldSBK: 26 at Aragon. He’s on 25 Assen podiums. The only year without an Assen podium was 2009 (7th and 5th).
20 – No less than 20 different riders have won a WorldSBK race at Assen but just two of them are present in the 2024 field: Rea and Bautista. In the last 20 races, only one other rider has beaten them at the track: Tom Sykes in Race 2, 2018, his last win to date.
20/10 – BMW riders never climbed on the podium at Assen: a top three result will make the Dutch track the 20th in which BMW posts a podium finish. Also, a win will make this the tenth winning track for them. Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) has never won there either.
17 – 17 wins for Rea at Assen: the absolute record for a rider on any given track.
15 – The last of the two Yamaha wins here came 15 years ago by Ben Spies (Race 1 2009). Their only other win was achieved in 2000’s Race 2 by Noriyuki Haga.
8 – Both Jonathan Rea and Carl Fogarty were able to win eight consecutive races at Assen. Fogarty set the record from 1993 to 1996, Rea from 2014 Race 2 to 2018 Race 1.
2 – Only two riders managed to record their maiden career win at Assen: Chris Walker (Race 1, 2006) and Sylvain Guintoli (Race 1, 2012), both of which were wet races.
2×11 – In the last 11 races run here, a streak started in Race 1, 2019, there were only two winners: Jonathan Rea (5) and Alvaro Bautista (6).
2×19 – The last 19 races run here were won only by two manufacturers: Kawasaki (13) and Ducati (6). The streak started after Rea won for Honda in Race 2, ten years ago (2014).
1 – Only one rider was able to win a dry race here starting outside the top five on the grid: that was Jonathan Rea in 2017 in Race 2, from 9th.
1 – A track of firsts for Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK): first podium and fastest lap in 2014 Race 2; maiden pole, 2018.
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Source: WorldSBK.com