The first European round of the 2019 WSBK season starts in Spain this weekend.
1. In 2011 Aragon became the fifth Spanish track in the history of the WorldSBK Championship, and the 44th overall.
2. A total of 70 races have been run on Spanish soil so far. Aragon, with 16 run up to now, is set to surpass Albacete (16: used from 1992 to 1999) to become the second Spanish circuit for WorldSBK races after Valencia (22 races).
3. The last 12 wins in Aragon were all scored by British riders: since the first race in 2014 the winners have been Chaz Davies (7 times); Jonathan Rea (3); Tom Sykes (2). They took up from Italy, which won the first four races here with Melandri (2) and Max Biaggi (2).
4. In the last four race weekends at Aragon (2015-2018), only two non-British riders made it to the podium: Marco Melandri (Italy) 3 times, and Spaniard Xavi Fores, 3rd in Race 1, last year.
5. The last 8 Aragon races (since 2015, Race 1) were won only by two riders: Chaz Davies (5 times) and Jonathan Rea (3).
6. Jonathan Rea climbed on the podium in all his eight races run for Kawasaki here.
7. Chaz Davies enters the Aragon weekend with 7 wins at this track. An eighth win would put Davies in a very close elite of riders who have won 8 or more times on a given track: Carl Fogarty and Jonathan Rea, with 12 wins each in Assen; Tom Sykes with 9 wins in Donington.
8. Carlos Checa is the only Spanish rider who achieved a pole, win or fastest lap in Aragon: he recorded the fastest race lap in the very first race held here in 2011.
9. An unstoppable Alvaro Bautista has recorded six wins out of six races in this beginning of the season, matching the rocket starts of Troy Bayliss in 2002 and Neil Hodgson in 2003: the latter went on to win the first nine races that year. In Aragon he will be already aiming for the second all-time string of wins, 9, recorded by Colin Edwards from Laguna Seca/2, 2002 to Imola/2, 2002, and repeated by Neil Hodgson in the aforementioned start of the 2003 season. The all-time record sequence was set by Jonathan Rea in the last 11 races of last season.
10. Given the current form of Alvaro Bautista, Ducati has the first chance to reach the milestone of 350 WorldSBK wins already in Aragon.
