By winning his third World Superbike Championship at Magny-Cours on Sunday, Troy Bayliss became the second most successful WSBK rider in history - behind only four-time champion Carl Fogarty.

Foggy also continues to lead the all-time WSBK win list, with 59 victories, however Bayliss has claimed his present 50 wins from just 150 starts (compared with 220 for Fogarty).

In terms of percentage, Bayliss tops the WSBK list for both wins (33.3%) and podiums (61.3%) - Foggy's win rate being 26.8% with 49.5% for podiums - but how does that compare against the achievements of F1 legend Michael Schumacher and MotoGP superstar Valentino Rossi?

The first table below shows the most important stats for each competitor, with the second listing their achievements as a percentage. Rossi's stats are for 500cc/MotoGP only:

Troy Bayliss: 150 (races) 50 (wins) 92 (podiums) 25 (poles) 3 (titles)
Valentino Rossi: 148 (races) 70 (wins) 113 (podiums) 41 (poles) 6 (titles)
Michael Schumacher: 248 (races) 91 (wins) 154 (podiums) 68 (poles) 7 (titles)

Troy Bayliss: 33.3% (win) 61.3% (podium) 16.7% (pole) 60% (title)*
Valentino Rossi: 47.3% (win) 76.4% (podium) 27.7% (pole) 66.7% (title)*
Michael Schumacher: 36.7% (win) 62.1% (podium) 27.4% (pole) 50.0% (title)*

* only full racing seasons were included for the title percentage (Bayliss missed three rounds of the 2000 season, whilst Schumacher missed part of both the 1991 and 1999 seasons).


The stats show that, whilst Rossi leads the way in all categories, Bayliss holds second in terms of his title-winning rate - courtesy of his three titles in five full seasons - with Schumacher second to Rossi on both race wins and pole percentage.

Bayliss now has just two races to improve his stats further, before retirement.