• Six different riders have finished on the podium in the first two races of the year – the first time this has occurred since 1977 when the second race of the year in Austria was boycotted by the leading factory riders for safety reasons.
  • The first two riders across the line in in Argentina were both Independent Team riders; the last time this occurred was at the Grand Prix of Turkey in 2006, when Marco Melandri won from Casey Stoner.
  • Championship leader Cal Crutchlow best results in Austin have been 4th place finishes in both 2013 and 2017. He will be aiming to be the first British rider to win back-to-back premier-class GP races since Barry Sheene in 1977. The last Independent Team rider to win back-to-back MotoGP races was Marco Melandri at the final two races of 2005.
  • Marc Marquez riding a Honda has qualified on pole and won all five MotoGP races that have taken place in Austin.
  • The last fourteen MotoGP races in the USA have all been won by Honda riders. The last non-Honda MotoGP winner in the USA was Jorge Lorenzo, at Laguna Seca in 2010 on a Yamaha.
  • Honda riders have qualified on pole for the last ten MotoGP races held in the USA. The last non-Honda rider to start from pole at any of the US circuits is Jorge Lorenzo at Laguna Seca in 2012.
  • Honda have won seventeen of the twenty-two premier-class grand prix races that have taken place in the USA in the MotoGP era.
  • After his second place finish in Austin last year Valentino Rossi headed the championship classification for the first time since he arrived at the final race of 2015 at Valencia with a seven-point lead over Jorge Lorenzo.
  • In Argentina Jack Miller became the first Independent Team Ducati rider to start from pole in the MotoGP class. His 4th place finish in Argentina is his best result since his win at the Dutch TT in 2016. Miller won the Moto3 race in Austin in 2014.
  • Andrea Dovizioso’s second place finish in 2015 is the best result for a Ducati at the Austin circuit. Dovizioso was the first Ducati rider across the line last year in Austin in 6th place.
  • At the Argentinian GP Alex Rins took his first podium finish since moving up to the MotoGP class at the start of last year, in just his 15th MotoGP start. Rins has a great record at the Austin circuit, winning the Moto3 race in 2013 and the Moto2 race in 2016. He missed the race in Austin last year due to injury.
  • The first four riders across the line in Argentina rode bikes from four different manufacturers; the last time this happened was at the Australian GP in 2016.
  • Seventeen different rider has finished on the podium across the three classes in the first two GP events of the year. Only Aron Canet in Moto3 has been on the podium at both events.
  • Hafizh Syahrin was the first Rookie across the line in Argentina in ninth place and now heads the Rookie of the Year classification with 9 points from Franco Morbidelli who has 6 points.
  • Yamaha have gone 12 MotoGP races without a win, their longest winless sequence since Honda won the opening 12 races of 2014. The last time that Yamaha went longer than 12 races without a win was the 18 races that included the last two races of 2002 and the 16 races of 2003.