120,000 average attendance at each MotoGP.

Over two million spectators watched the 17 MotoGP Grands Prix during the 2005 season, producing a record breaking average attendance of just under 120,000 spectators at each event.

The biggest weekend attendance of the season was at the opening round at Jerez in Spain with 237,232 fans shaking off the winter blues (top picture). Jerez also produced the biggest race day crowd of 127,089 - get booking for next year before it's too late.

Next most popular was last weekend's Valencia Grand Prix - which pulled in a total trackside audience of 222,312 and race day attendance of 124,520 - while the German Grand Prix joined the two Spanish venues at topping the 200,000 mark. The Sachsenring pulled in 216,417 over the weekend, with 95,364 fans on race day.

Of the new events, the return of the US GP at Laguna Seca was an overwhelming success with a total of 153,653 fans attending the event - and a consistent three-day split of 40,520 fans on Friday, 55,201 on Saturday and 57,932 on Sunday. Tickets for Saturday and Sunday were sold out in advance.

By contrast, the inaugural Chinese Grand Prix was attended by a total of 32,507 - with the race day crowd of 25,438 not being helped by heavy rain - while the inaugural Turkish Grand Prix attracted 21,420, of which 14,531 were present on race day.

However, the 'wooden spoon' award for lowest spectator attendance unsurprisingly again goes to Qatar (middle pic), which improved on its 5,089 total attendance figure of 2004 by just 458 this year. In all, 402 spectators were present on Friday, 1,893 on Saturday and 3,251 on race day.

In terms of the three wet races - Estoril, Shanghai and Donington Park - it was the British fans that proved the most resilient, with 75,661 fans braving the appalling race day rain to watch Valentino Rossi take victory (lower pic). Despite the weather, the race day crowd was just 6,430 down on last year.