Rennie Scaysbrook | November 17, 2021
Cycle News Lowside
COLUMN
Ciao, Vale, Grazie Mille!
The great man has finally hung up his AGV. Some, including myself, thought this day might never come, but Valentino Rossi is human, after all, and time eventually catches up with everyone.
Rossi has been the lynchpin of my love of MotoGP for as long as I can properly remember. I watched the races with mum and dad prior to Rossi’s arrival in 1996, but at 13 years old that’s when my memory of racing really began to solidify. Rossi was there, front row center.
It’s incredible to think until yesterday he was still racing grands prix. I’ve gone from 13 to 39 in that time and can barely remember my life in 1995 as a 12-year-old. What a career that man has had. One truly remarkable in not just world sport but public life in general. I cannot think of a sportsman more universally popular than Rossi. The good he has done for motorcycle racing as a whole will take years, possibly generations, to fully grasp.
As a teenager, I was drawn to the mischievous ways of a young Valentino, and each October my best mate Simon and I would beg for one of the parents to take us to Phillip Island to watch him in 125 or 250cc competition.
His post-race antics are the stuff of legend—going to the porta-potty after winning at Jerez; donning the Robin Hood outfit at Donington Park; a speeding ticket at Mugello; or, perhaps most audaciously, throwing a blow-up doll missionary style on his Aprilia labeled “Claudia Schiffer” as a direct jab at arch nemesis Max Biaggi and his supposed love affair with Naomi Campbell.
Fans loved him. Riders wanted to be him. Just like Jorge Lorenzo, who’s celebratory sessions seemed to smack of attention seeking while he was Rossi’s teammate in the Fiat Yamaha team.
Rossi’s rivalries read like the who’s who of the last 25 years in grand prix racing. Loris Capirossi and Tetsuya Harada in 250s and Biaggi and Gibernau in the early 2000s in MotoGP were fairly easily dealt with, and while Nicky Hayden did indeed take the 2006 title off Rossi at Valencia in 2006, Hayden’s challenge faded over the years whereas Rossi would usually be at or near the front of the pack.
Then came Casey Stoner.
The diminutive Aussie was the first rider to properly stick it to Rossi, walking away with the 2007 MotoGP title in a fashion Rossi had never experienced before. For the first time ever, someone had done to Rossi what he’d consistently done to everyone else.
The 2008 season was thus a cracker, as Rossi used all his guile to defeat champion Stoner in what I think was his best season. Who could forget Laguna Seca 2008? I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the result, but if you want to see heavyweight boxing on motorcycles, YouTube the race.
Not only was Stoner now here, so was Lorenzo, and he really got under Rossi’s skin. So much so the Italian demanded a wall down the center of the Yamaha garage to stop any information going to his young Spanish teammate.
Lorenzo didn’t care and forced Rossi into a leg-breaking mistake during practice for the 2010 Italian Grand Prix. None of us knew it at the time, but this point would be the beginning of the long, slow decline from the top for the great Italian.
Calling Yamaha’s bluff, Rossi took his bat and ball and spent two dismal years at Ducati before putting his tail between his legs and trudging back to what was very much now Lorenzo’s factory Yamaha team. That move alone showed the popularity of the man, because if any other rider had two years of results like he did on the Ducati, there’s no way he’d be given a factory Yamaha seat.
However, his return to Yamaha coincided with the arrival of the man who would finally make Rossi snap, Marc Marquez. Rossi and Marc initially got along well, often joking and laughing post-race, but when the spark reignited in the old man in 2015 and a 10th World title was a very real possibility, things got nasty.
Argentina, 2015. Marquez crashes after Rossi catches him and wins the race. Assen, 2015. Marquez tries a desperate last-corner attack, wedging himself on Rossi’s inside which causes Rossi to bolt through the gravel trap and roar to victory.
Then, the mighty four-way battle at Phillip Island, won by Marquez after one of the greatest last laps in history.
Rossi’s brain-snap followed the next race in Malaysia, inexplicably outing Marquez in the pre-race press conference as helping Lorenzo to the title, even though Marquez passed Lorenzo on the final lap in Australia to steal five precious points off his countryman.
Marquez, incensed at this outburst, did indeed make a right nuisance of himself in the Malaysian race. We all know what happened there. It was a dark hour for the sport, where egos on both sides ran rampant and no one emerged the winner—except Lorenzo.
In more recent times, Rossi’s shown great humility by bringing forth a generation of talented young Italian riders through the VR46 Academy, riders that will keep the country in good MotoGP stead for many years to come. Rossi genuinely cares for the sport, and I hope the Academy gets opened up to riders outside Italy so they too can experience Academy life.
Rossi’s presence in the paddock is towering. His business practices and acumen have made him a fortune the likes of which will take a few generations to spend, and he is as close to a god in Italy as Jesus Christ himself.
I’ll miss Rossi on the world stage, but the fact is he left a while ago. The Rossi I knew was always in contention for a podium or a win, not circulating at the tail-end of the points like now. Be that as it may, his impact on the sport will never be matched, not by anyone, because it’s a time and place thing, a bit like The Beatles or Michael Jordan.
My greatest memory of Rossi will, like many, be of Catalunya 2009. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched the last three laps on YouTube, and that last-lap, last-corner pass on Lorenzo remains, in my mind, the ballsiest, gnarliest pass I’ve ever seen.
That moment was pure Valentino Rossi. Audacious, outrageous, arrogant, lovable, iconic. There’ll never be one like him again.
Ciao, Vale, grazie mille! CN
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