VR46 on rivals and a tenth title: "We can do more than 2017"
motogp.com/en/in+the+media/2018/04/03/vr46-on...
motogp.comPosted Apr 4, 2018, 6:31 AM UTC
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motogp.comI hope he wins the very last race of career. I'm not saying it's this year, or next year, but that date is looming ahead.
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If he's still able to win, he won't retire.
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Yeah but I don't want to watch a season of Rossi coming in 11th or worse every race before he decides to hang it up.
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He's not going back to Ducati don't worry.
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I would be fine with that... For him and me there wouldn't be any doubt that he gave it his everything...
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Unlikely if Valencia remains the final race of the season, his last win there was back in 2004, Pedrosa won the 250cc race there that year too, just for more perspective on how long ago that was.
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Just to piggyback on your comment about how long ago that was - Stoner, Dovi, Lorenzo, Bautista and Aleix Espargaro were in 125’s.
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Marquez was on the playground that day.
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He’ll have been about, what, 11 at the time? Crazy.
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Except he was runner up in the 125cc Catalonia Road Racing Championship and had been racing on the road for the previous five years (with Enduro racing before that).
And that fact is what makes Zarco so interesting to me. Marquez is a natural talent who was also groomed from birth. His neuro pathways literally formed around motorcycle riding, in some ways making a motorcycle an extension to his body.
Zarco, on the other hand, didn't start racing until he was 17, by which time the majority of those neurological pathways would have already formed, yet he was able to become a Moto2 world champion just a few years later.
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2020 will likely be Rossi's last season. But there is still a possibility he can win in his last Motogp race.
2021/2022 seasons i wouldn't rule out Rossi doing a few wildcard Motogp race's for either VR46 team or Factory Yamaha team. No pressure on him at that point and he could win a final race then retire for good.
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Rossi says he'll retire. Wins last race, still competitive, decides yo stay.
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Rossi will still be racing in MotoEP/RoboRace in 2040 as only Human competitor.
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You betcha!
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His Italian TV interviews are great. Go to youtube, turn on subtitles, then auto-translate from Italian to English - hilarity ensues.
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VR46 on rivals and a tenth title: "We can do more than 2017"
In a long interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport in his native Italy, nine-time World Champion Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) talks track, life and passion as he goes beyond the normal questions posed and answers given.
It begins, as it often now the case, with the customary incredulity in the face of Rossi’s longevity at the top of his game – comparing his career with another Italian sporting legend, Gigi Buffon, who is a year older than the Yamaha rider and captains both Juventus and the national Italian team. Another man in a similar league? Roger Federer, who, at 36, continues to win and rewrite records in tennis.
“He should continue if he wants to. I think he knows if he can still be at the top,” the rider from Tavullia says of Buffon. “In my opinion, it’s easier to say someone is finished than to recognise he has the balls to still be there and try.”
With so much talk about the number 46 and his age after he recently signed another two-year deal to race, the words ring truer than a simple commentary on a compatriot. Point made, talk then turns back to the track and, specifically, fans – of which the ‘Doctor’ has many.
“Having so many fans makes me happy,” he smiles. “People have got attached to me. With the Fan Club, we do a good job and with Flavio, we do a lot of stuff for kids, go to hospitals, take them to races…it’s important to me, a fan club should do stuff like that.”
With Rossi still at the pinnacle of the pinnacle and now signed up to race a 25th season, it’s easy to see how the number 46’s army has grown to what it is now. On the podium first time out in 2018, too, there’s much to cheer for. So as we really get in gear for 2018, who does Rossi think will be strongest? Pretty much who you’d expect after a stunning season last year: “For me, the riders to beat are Dovizioso and Marquez, maybe more Dovizioso…but I put them on the same level because Marquez always has the ability to be strong. I’m happy with my own first race, but we’re not at their level yet.”
At that point, Rossi points out the issue that has been a challenge for the Iwata marque for some time – rear grip. But it’s better than it was. “There will be tracks at which we’ll suffer a bit with rear grip,” explains the Italian, “where we’ll be on the back foot and will have to work hard. But I hope and I think that with the 2018 bike, where we do suffer, it won’t be as much.” One key thing is electronics, something where the ‘Doctor’ says other marques have made a gain. "What I think Ducati and Honda have done better is to have had more time, more money and more people working on the electronic side. Yamaha must understand that and work on it, I think they knew but we’re a little behind with a group working to try and extract the maximum from it.”
Another key topic on the agenda is Andrea Dovizioso, Rossi’s countryman and someone to whom the number 46 isn’t close – but they have a lot of respect and a good relationship, the rider from Tavullia explains.
“What I really like about Dovi is his determination and the desire to never give up. Before Mugello 2017, he’d been in MotoGP I don’t know how long and he seemed to be someone who couldn’t win. That’s something that, psychologically, can make you crash. But he didn’t give up and at 31 he’s become a real winner.”
Never giving up sounds familiar. So finally, it’s that age-old question – the other one that isn’t about his age: the possibility of a tenth title.
"It would be nice, I would like it and we’re not missing anything,” he says. “Last year we lost the 'good' of our bike; we were left with the flaws. Now, we still have some flaws but we’ve found the positives. In 2017 Maverick and I finished third and fifth; we can do more. We can, at least, try to fight for it.”
Round 2 of 2018 will tell us more as MotoGP™ returns to the venue that saw Maverick Viñales take victory last season, ahead of Rossi in second. But the ‘Doctor’ has won there, too – so make sure to tune in on Sunday 8th April as we tango at Termas de Rio Hondo.
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The part where he mentions finishing 3 and 5 for Yamaha last year is important because the top 5 were separated by only 90 points at the season end-- not exactly a bad result. 90 points is not nothing, but the gaps have been much larger. And since 2014, he's finished 2nd three times (behind Marc and Jorge), and 5th once last year when the competition level of bikes and riders increased.
I'm not saying a 10th will happen, but it's motorcycle racing, so who knows.
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I don't think Rossi in his entire career has regressed. I think everyone else is just better because he elevated the sport from a purely commercial standpoint as a global icon.
I want him to win another title and I think with a little luck he can.
He 39 years old, of course he’s regressed. Watch a race from 2005 and then today. The style and bikes have changed, but back then Rossi just played with the other guys. He rode loose and with more risk than he does today. He’s lost speed and the killer instinct that he used to have. Now he rides with precision and experience, not quite the same.
Everyone is amazed at Marc and his ability to fight in every situation. Rossi used be exactly like this. It is quite amazing how similar they are.
People keep saying he hasn’t lost any speed. Horse crap, of course he has. Luckily for us, he had so much, that losing some still leaves him fighting at the top.
I laugh every time users on this sub claim that Rossi actually improved as a rider. They haven't seen his earlier years. They also often argue that the competition was weaker. Yet, there was a different podium finisher every race, most top riders at the time were multiple lower-class championship winners, and the bikes were completely different and challenging to ride. It reminds me of the people who argue that Pele was only good because he faced weaker opponents.
Or that Federer had no competition in his early years. I never understood these arguments. If you made your competition look easy, it was your supremacy not their inability. Also no matter what you do or how you train, it is simply not possible to have the same muscle speed or reflexes when you’re 39 vs when you were 25. The fact that you can remain competitive means one of two things: You’ve adapted your training and riding to take advantage of your experience not raw talent.
Or if you do support that there was less competition: then the competition must be completely useless now because a guy who won when the competition was low can still be competitive today when he is 10+ years past his peak.
I disagree.... Today I see him pushing the entire race. Back in the old days he just rode his race at 8/10ths behind the guy that was in first, and then, with 1 or 2 laps to go he would smoke him because he was sandbagging the entire race
You are partially helping make my point! Today he has to ride the whole race a 100%. 1) because he’s not as fast as he once was & 2) the tyres are much better than they were - they actually last a whole race. Rossi can attribute a lot of his success early on to his ability to ride fast on old tyres. loose and wild and at the very edge setting fastest lap after fastest lap right at the end of the race. Rossi was smart enough to know that you only need to be leading the last time you cross the line, why risk leading all the time if you don’t have to?
He's older and less aggressive, he knows his body won't heal as fast as before and also points are more important. I feel now if he is on podium with only 5 laps left then he is content and won't push like before. Still a great rider just different.
He was also on a much better bike than anyone else in 2005.
Who developed and made it the best bike? The best riders are all able to develop a bike and build the best teams to help. The only rider who I’ve seen that could get a result from a lemon is Stoner. In his Ducati years he went backwards (more to do with Ducati arrogance than Stoner) because there was zero good development. Ability to develop a bike is just another important skill for s good rider. Marc didn’t have this at first (probably because he started on the best bike) and once Yamaha caught up, he struggled. Then he learnt how to develop and now he’s been at the top ever since.
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That probably had more to do with Stoner’s particular riding style than it did a lack of attention from Ducati. Stoner took the title with the GP7. The GP8 was a derivative of the GP7. And Stoner raved about the GP9 calling it one of the best bikes he’d ridden, instead chalking up his mediocre results to his health problems. Meanwhile Melandri, who’s no rube, got absolutely nowhere despite running the same bike. Fact is, had there been any other rider leading Ducati’s development it’d likely have been a much more neutral machine.
Lorenzo has faced bit of the same problem in reverse, wherein he was on a very good bike last season but his very particular 250-derived riding style led to underwhelming results on the GP18.