Whenever someone mentions the word MotoGP, the name Valentino Rossi is immediately associated with it. If you’ve never watched a MotoGP race, this applies particularly to you – ‘MotoGP?…Oh Yeah, Valentino Rossi!’
After 25 years in MotoGP, racing for 26 seasons, garnering 115 wins, 235 podiums, and 9 World Championships, Rossi has hung up the gloves.
I wouldn’t call it retirement because The Doctor, as he is affectionally known, will never really retire from MotoGP.
Yes, we will no longer see him jump on the bike and compete at the highest level of motorcycle racing. And the days he did have simply become legend overnight. But Rossi will always be a part of MotoGP.
By 2022, Rossi will have his own racing team across every class in MotoGP – that’s Moto3, Moto2 and finally his very own MotoGP team in 2022. No other racer in history has achieved such a feat.
You could say he is swapping his racing boots for some very good running shoes because I can imagine he will be sprinting from garage to garage to oversee his riders in the seasons to come.
He will stand in pitlane, arms waving animatedly, as we have so famously seen him do over the years, to cheer on his Moto3 and Moto2 Academy Riders as they fly past the finish line. Expand that to MotoGP next year.
And who knows, maybe Valentino Rossi will finally win that 10th MotoGP World Championship that he chased for over a decade. It won’t come in the form that we are accustomed to – Valentino Rossi, the rider. But it will come in the form of his MotoGP team winning the World Title one day – Rossi’s VR46 Team.
Rossi evolved MotoGP.
Right from the start of his career, Rossi teed up with Italian designer Aldo Drudi and together they created whimsical helmet designs. Prior to this, helmets weren’t seen as much more than a protective device for riders, smeared with block colours and logos.
Rossi, maybe without even knowing it at the time, created a brand - it all started with one of his earliest helmet designs - the sun and moon. Symbolic of Rossi's two personalities, the positive happy-go-lucky attitude and the darker competitive nature acquired to take out a win.
Together, Rossi and Drudi would initiate a completely different approach to helmet designs.
Rossi’s on track competitors soon followed suit, commissioning Drudi or other designers for their very own signature look.
In 1996, Rossi entered the 125cc category, equivalent to today’s Moto3 class, and won the title the following year. By 1999, he had garnered his second World Championship and a legend of fans. This time, a 250cc World Champion. But Rossi wasn’t your average champion, he was different. Spunky, charismatic, humble, charming, and a whole lot of crazy. He pioneered post-race celebrations in the form of dressing up and performing entertaining skits. This would be replicated by riders down the track.
Rossi wasn’t just a sportsman but a showman. He didn’t have to try. He didn’t have to act. It was simply natural. And you couldn’t help but like it. Like him. Like MotoGP.
Although the Rossi era had already been established, it really sparked into gear from 2000, when he graduated to the 500cc class, and showed the world that he could seriously compete with the big boys. In fact, it only took him two seasons, pocketing his first 500cc World Championship by 2001. He would then go on to dominate the next decade, winning in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2009.
He famously switched from Honda to Yamaha in 2004. Attracted by the challenge of making the impossible happen by winning on the Yamaha YXR-M1, which was a notoriously hopeless machine. Rossi wanted to prove that the rider is more important than the bike and he proved exactly that. A risky maneuverer that I am yet to see another champion attempt. Who would risk leaving a winning bike for one that has shown such low performance? Rossi would.
After Rossi’s last race, he was officially inducted into the MotoGP Hall of Fame at the FIM MotoGP Award Ceremony and is now an official MotoGP Legend. An honour that usually isn’t presented by the FIM for months or even years after a rider has retired.
Rossi stood on stage, humbled and smiling, to deliver his farewell speech: “It was a long career, and always a pleasure.”
Grazie, Vale. I can safely say, the pleasure was all ours.
By Marcella Gallace