The official Repsol Honda Team Twitter account @HRC_MotoGP posted these statistics (pictured) comparing the MotoGP achievements ofꩵ Casey Stoner with Valentino Rossi since 2006.

The image was pos🌄ted with the words "The stats say it all."

Stoner, who made his MotoGP debut in 2006, won his first MotoGP title with Ducati in 2007༺ and his second for Repsol Honda last season.

Rossi, now at Duca🙈ti, made his premier-class debut in 2000 and won tw𒈔o of his seven MotoGP titles in Repsol Honda colours.

Follow-up Tweets f💧rom @HRC_MotoGP, after the inevitable backlash from some faꦯns, added:

"Don't take it so seriously! Only a bit of❀ fun..."

"Uhhhh, not belittling... just pointing out Casey's achievement▨s... after all this IS HRC's twitter and not Ducati's?!"

Rossi, recovering from minor surgery on Monday,𓄧 then responded via his own official Twitter account @VꦅaleYellow46:

"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 ♒[to] compare the first 5 🥂season of me with the first 5 of Stoner."

Ro🔯ssi won the 500cc/MotoGP title from🦂 2001-2005, then again in 2008 and 2009.

UPDATE: HRC_MotoGP has now removed the stats from its Twitter feed, saying "Ok ok... will remove... wasn't belittling @ValeYellow46 achi📖evements... just comꦿparing! #dugdeepenoughnow"