Valentino Rossi (Monster Energy Yamaha) in an interview after 3rd place in Jerez in July 2020 – he won the various classes in Jerez exactly as many times as he was world champion.

On the question of the best driver in Andalusia since 2015

We didn’t choose the surtitle by chance, as it reminds us of a delicious experience from 2019 in WorldSBK. Of course, we were there as with almost every round back then and read this headline about the result late on Saturday evening in a local newspaper. It was used after Alvaro Bautista’s victory in the 1st race at the Circuito de Jerez. However, as is quite common with many journalists, the author had not yet taken Sunday into account. In the morning, the short local hero won the sprint race over 10 laps, called the Superpole Race, which was newly introduced this year. Incidentally, recently taken over by Formula 1 to try to make the car races more exciting. By the way, Bautista fell on the second lap of the second run on Sunday and with Michael van der Mark a Dutchman became “The King of Jerez” in the end. We wanted to know exactly in MotoGP and flipped back to 2015 for our statistics.

The said article came too early – despite his victory in the first race and in the Superpole Race on Sunday morning, Alvaro Bautista on the Ducati Panigale V4R did not end up being the overall winner. A crash caused by himself cost him the “crown” on the second lap, which unfortunately he was to repeat later in Misano in an almost identical manner. When he crashed again in Donington Park, the championship lead went to Jonathan Rea, who didn’t let the butter be stolen from his bread afterwards.
Photographed by us 2019 with spectators on the Saturday before qualifying at the last MotoGP weekend so far – Turn 6, called “Dry Sac” with similar weather to what is currently forecast for next Friday.
Valentino Rossi photographed by us before the start of the Jerez GP 2019 – he is by far the most successful driver in Jerez de la Frontera, if you take all the years for this and for the victories on this track.

The statistics from 2015 to 2020 are amazing

The MotoGP statistics before the Jerez Grand Prix show a mixed picture when it comes to the two most successful riders of this period. Marc Marquez would probably be ahead of Fabio Quartararo without his fall, some think at first glance. But on the other hand, the Frenchman had suffered an innocent loss the year before. In second place, he was chasing the Repsol Honda rider when a technical problem stopped him. When you see how many of the current drivers have only recently joined the company, playing around with numbers seems to be useless in some cases. Nevertheless, you can see some interesting things that some so-called experts apparently no longer had in mind before the start of the season.

Some previously underrated drivers are astonishingly far ahead
If one takes into account in many forecasts what some of the names overlooked by most experts only achieved in Jerez, some of their forecasts are questionable. For this reason we already warned in winter against constantly counting Jack Miller among the top favorites, for example, and ignoring drivers like Zarco. Some previously underrated drivers are astonishingly far ahead in Jerez, which is true even for Valentino Rossi. His best years are not there at all and last year he came in third after having retired in the first race with an engine failure. Seen in this way, one should even count him among the favorites along with Quartararo, Marquez and Viñales.

A Frenchman who grew up in Spain from his teenage years is the uncrowned King of Jerez, at least in modern times, in terms of his results in the races that have been driven there so far. This even in spite of a technical failure due to a transmission problem at its premiere in 2019.

What the statistics don’t include
Of course there are many ifs and buts, for example Pecco Bagnaia was on the podium before retiring in the second race last year with engine failure on his Ducati. Oliveira had been shot down by Binder in this race after finishing a good eighth in the first race. Injuries like that of Alex Rins in qualifying for Jerez 2020 before the first race cannot be seen in the numbers. Therefore, even after a few years, Marc Marquez’s result will no longer ask whether his arm was at 100 or 80 percent in Portugal and will soon also be one of his favorite tracks. In the end, the only thing that counts is the result, and from a purely sporting point of view, this is perhaps a good thing. For the sake of completeness, the following is our statistics for all classes with all races we have driven so far, including MotoGP podium placements. The two-stroke categories in italics, as mentioned in the title.

The Jerez weekend is just around the corner

After the press conference will take place on Thursday evening, things get down to business on Friday morning. The forecasts for humidity change daily for the coming weekend. The day before, there was around 30 percent probability of rain forecast for Friday lunchtime, now there should be a small chance for wet conditions on Saturday. Usually we have seen weather forecasts in Spain to be quite reliable so far, but at the moment they seem to be like a ping-pong game. About four days ago there was allegedly the threat of rain for the entire GP weekend. Either way, Fabio Quartararo, along with the rookies, will be one of those drivers who want a dry track, as he has anything but the reputation of a rain specialist.

The World Championship stand in all classes before round 4 in Jerez

From left to right the World Championship stand of MotoGP, Moto2 and Moto3 with some names that one would not have expected so far ahead before the start of the season, but supposed favorites very far behind.

Schedule and TV program Jerez Grand Prix

Unless otherwise stated, this applies to all images (© MotoGP).