MotoReview

This Sunday's Turkish MotoGP will be Valentino Rossi's 100th race in the premier class and in it another record could well fall into the hands of the Italian champ.

Having equalled Mick Doohan's number of career victories in Qatar, Valentino Rossi is now just 7 points away from becoming the all-time highest points scorer in Grand Prix motorcycle racing. Rossi's current points total stands at 2886 and anything better than a 10th place finish in Turkey will see Max Biaggi's current record beaten.

The Istanbul circuit is one of only two on the calender at which the #46 rider has not won a race in his GP career, but then only one race has taken place in Turkey so far and he did manage second.

Valentino Rossi

"Qatar was like the start of my championship but we're already behind in the points and we need to do our best to catch up," said Rossi. "My rivals are very strong and we need to be able to fight for the win again in Turkey. Istanbul isn't one of my favourite tracks and we had a really hard time there last year - we had already won the championship and it was difficult to stay 100% focused at that stage of the season, plus we had some set-up problems with the bike. This time we go there feeling fully motivated.

"We don't know how the new bike will react at this circuit; I hope that it will go well and that we won't have any vibration problems. There are some fantastic fast corners so if the bike is working well it could be great fun to ride there. We tested again after Qatar and we made some improvements, and although we still haven't completely solved our problems hopefully even if they do reappear at some stage, we're going to be able to cope with them better now."