Other Great Wet-weather Riders

Valentino Rossi

Rossi’s neutral riding style works well in the wet, and never more so than at the rain-lashed 2005 and 2015 British GPs. At Donington in 2005 Rossi destroyed everyone, clearing off at the rate of two seconds a lap. Last year at Silverstone he raced through the puddles, resisting huge pressure from Marc Marquez, who crashed out, and Petrucci.

Christian Sarron

Sarron’s defeat of Freddie Spencer in the soaking 1985 German GP was a big deal because Fast Freddie was at the top of his game. Some people think Sarron was fast in the rain because he was a nutter, but the Frenchman disagrees. “It’s always hard to find the limit in the rain; you need to find the front limit on the brakes and into corners,” he says.

Michael Rutter

At the 1997 Brands WSB round littleknown BSB rider Rutter shared the podium with Carl Fogarty and John Kocinski, thanks to a British summer downpour. “I enjoy the rain because I know everyone else probably doesn’t, so it’s like, great it’s raining,” he says. “You need to set up the bike so it’s nice to ride, just making it a lot softer, so you’ve got feel.”

Giancarlo Falappa

Falappa had a mind-boggling ability to find grip in the rain. At the flooded Brands Hatch WSB round in 1993 he beat everyone by an astonishing 36 seconds. Jamie Whitham thought he was fast in the rain, until he watched Falappa. “I remember him going into Druids: he just went bang, bang through the gears and threw it on to his knee,” recalls Whitham.