Earlier this week the HRC MotoGP Twitter feed released a little statistic comparison between the successes of Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi from the period of 2006-2011 (see here), this was posted with the words 'The stats say it all'.
This obviously fuelled an almighty outburst on the Twittersphere, with HRC pulling the graphic after a backlash from Rossi's adoring fans saying that they were belittling Rossi's achievements (that sounds familiar - payback?)
But that wasn't until Rossi himself, whilst recovering from having his Mugello metalwork removed on Monday, responded to the stats Tweeting: "Eh eh, very easy compare the numbers between me and Stoner from 2006, when I won already 5 champs and 53 races mgp. More real compare the first 5 season of me with the first 5 of Stoner."
Well Vale, we've put this into perspective as we've taken both your and Stoner's first six years in the premier class and put together this nice little infographic.
Stoner graduated to MotoGP in 2006, winning his first title in 2007 with Ducati and following that success with his second on a Repsol Honda last season.
Rossi made his premier class debut back in 2000 and started his championship winning streak the following year, taking his first three titles on Honda machinery and then another four after transferring to Yamaha. His first championship win came in the final year of 500s in 2001, then 2002-2005 on the four-stroke 990s and again in 2008 and 2009 in the 800 era.
It's all food for thought but, damn, the racing can't come any sooner...
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