‘I COULD HAVE WON MORE’
In an exclusive interview Valentino Rossi lifts the lid on his 2018 campaign and says he’s never been in better shape for MotoGP
There’s only a handful of riders who can boast a GP racing record quite like Valentino Rossi’s. Giacomo Agostini, Mike Hailwood and Mick Doohan are the only racers who have come close to the popularity and success that the nine-time world champion has enjoyed in his 23-year career.
Yet despite his incredible record, only fellow Italian Agostini has more GP race wins, Rossi admits he could have been even better.
During a rare a one-to-one interview with MCN recently, Rossi makes it abundantly clear that he’s more than happy with the success he’s enjoyed. But training harder than ever to remain at the top despite being nearly 40 years old, he’s also aware that if he’d worked as hard earlier in his career, things could have been even better.
“In the end, I can’t regret anything. I won a lot. Sometimes I think that if I had been able to use the mental strength I have now then I could have won a lot more when I was 25. I was superior to the others, but I was human and normal. I was more relaxed than the other riders. I don’t regret it! “I train a lot more now than I did then. If I had trained like this when I was 25, I would have won more! But that’s how it is.”
Rossi may have started racing in Grand Prix the year Alex Rins was born, but he’s managing to keep up and beat the young guns. Thanks in part to the VR46 Riders’ Academy he’s surrounded himself with, Rossi admits that he’s having to work harder every year but says it’s a price worth paying. “It’s got more difficult physically, but that’s a good challenge because it motivates me to try to improve all the little details. It’s important to work on that, and the Academy helps me very much with that. If I had to train alone, it would be a lot more difficult and maybe I wouldn’t be where I am now.
“Last year was a bad season, but that was more because the bike didn’t work. We started well, we finished badly. But my broken leg (mid-way through the year) actually gave me a lot of power, because I saw how my body reacted to it. It was incredible. I recovered a lot better than I did in 2010. I didn’t feel older and my body reacted in a really good way. “In the end, I race for the taste of the victory, for what I feel after a good race and a good weekend. For that feeling you have for ten to 12 hours after the race. That’s the only reason I’m here. I think about the other stuff too, like trying to win the title and lots of races, but that’s just numbers. It’s really all about the feeling I get.”
It’s been a long time since Rossi had that winning feeling. It’s now almost a year since he tasted victory, all the way back at Assen last season and eight years since his last world title. Some worry that the longer he remains in the top class, the more damage he’ll do to his reputation if he fails to take that elusive tenth world title.
Rossi’s not worried. “It was a hard decision to sign another deal with Yamaha. I know that I have to put in a lot of effort over the next three years. But I’m happy. I decided that I can do it. I feel good, I have a lot of motivation and I want to continue, want to be competitive, want to try to win. That’s the most important thing. The desire is there.
“If you look at the numbers, I’ve been here for more than 20 years, which is great, but it scares me a little bit! But in the end, it’s just a number! I started very early. I’ve worked every day for a long time to be champion, and I want to keep fighting for it. I also want to win races, I want to be battling every Sunday for the podium.
“I saw a lot of great riders and drivers stop at the height of their careers, like Max Biaggi or Troy Bayliss. They all came back on track. I decided that I would race to the end instead. I don’t want to decide after I stop that maybe I could have done two more seasons after all. It can be a risk, but if that was the only worry then maybe I should have stopped six or seven years ago. ” And while title number ten and topping Agostini’s all-time win record might well be on his to-do list before he retires, Rossi is also adamant that if he achieves his goals he won’t simply pack up and go home.
“I want to have had enough of MotoGP before I leave it, and maybe after 24 years of it I will have had enough! But I want to continue to race afterwards with cars. And then after that I can think about family and all the normal things in life.
“I was very surprised about what Nico Rosberg did in Formula One, walking away after winning the title. I don’t know how he feels about it now, but in the end, everyone is different.
The Movistar Yamaha rider might be happy with his lot in life right now, but he’s also aware that the paddock he races in is acutely different from the one he faced way back in 1996.
It is now far more professional, more high profile and more aggressive since the rise of social media and unprecedented fan rivalries, spurred on recently by his on-track antics with Marc Marquez. He conceded that it doesn’t make for an easy life.
“When I started, everything was easier and people enjoyed everything more. Back then, you could fly around the paddock on a scooter that could do 120kph pulling wheelies with all the people around you, and now you have to crawl around at 30kph.
“Having so many fans is just the price that you have to pay. But as I get older I take it more calmly. In the past, it was difficult for me to understand that I couldn’t have a normal life. Now I know I can’t have one and that it’ll always be like that. I try to take advantage of it and not think about the disadvantages. “I can, for example, still go to America away from the races, and have a quiet life. I have some places where I can fine peace. Some years ago, I decided to stay in Tavullia and step by step and year by year I built a castle there. A castle with lots of secret rooms and secret tunnels, so that when I am in my castle I know where I can go and I can live a normal life. It was a great choice for my career, because if you have a good life with less stress then it’s easier to continue.
“I have always had a lot of fans, but since I came back to Yamaha and especially since what happened in 2015 [a clash with Marquez in Sepang as the season reached a climax caused huge controversy], it feels different. It feels like I’ve become an icon now, a sporting hero. Before I was a good rider, but now something is different.”
But Rossi refused to add fuel to the fire surrounding his most recent on-track clash with Marquez. After crashing out of the Argentinian GP when Marquez barged into him, Rossi said the hot-headed Spaniard was ‘ruining the sport’. Now he says: “I want to focus on the track. Maybe now is not the time to sit down and talk to him about. but maybe in the future I will.” In a bid to stay relaxed and stop that on-track pressure geeting to him, Rossi surrounds himself with childhood friends like Uccio Salucci and the young riders at his academy who have helped keep him fresh. “Sometimes they make me feel old, sometimes they make me feel very young. But the level of training that we have together is unbelievably different. If I had the Ranch and didn’t have the Academy riders, I could do the same fast time every lap but I would never improve. Now, you enter a corner and you’re first, then one rider goes faster and then another sets the fastest time and before you realise, it’s 7pm and you’ve been riding all day. It’s great to still improve every day.
“We ride every Saturday during the winter, and then during the season we ride every other Saturday when we’re not racing. We do lots of other things to keep sharp during the week as well though.”
Rossi is also planning to move his VR46 team up to the premier class as soon as he’s stopped racing. He is expected to take on the Tech3 role as satellite team for Yamaha, but nothing official has been announced. He added: “We started with a team in Spain then went to Moto3 and then Moto2, so once we get to MotoGP the progression will be complete. I think we’re going to have great support from Yamaha. If they are with us we can do a good job.
“I think it’s our challenge to take Italian riders to the top.”
‘I have built a castle with secret rooms and tunnels’