The inside story behind Valentino Rossi’s new Saudi-backed team
New VR46 MotoGP team will be on the grid in 2022 with Saudi sponsor
Valentino Rossi has been a racing trend-setter for a quarter of century now. And as he enters the twilight of a glorious riding career, finishing a disappointing 17th in Jerez, he has delivered a masterstroke to complete his decade-long dream of setting up a VR46 MotoGP team.
He has revealed that Aramco, the state-owned Saudi Arabian petroleum giant which is awash with cash, will sponsor his VR46 team from 2022 onwards. The arrival of the multimillion pound Aramco deal was crucial for Rossi to become a fully-fledged MotoGP team owner, and will bring the grid to 24 bikes in 2022. Despite Rossi’s unquestioned star pulling power he was not being inundated with commercial partners willing to deliver the funding for a top class satellite squad. In fact, the projected £9-£12 million budget needed for a GP team - depending on rider salaries had been proving elusive. Just over a year ago even the possibility of VR46 team - with Rossi as lead rider - was off the table despite the usual Dorna team contributions of approx £3.5 million.
Speaking at the Sepang test in 2020 Rossi told MCN: “I like that idea but I don’t have the money to do it, that is a problem. Better I go with Petronas SRT [in 2021].” The level of funding for VR46 hasn’t been revealed, but is reportedly tipped to be at the top end of the scale for a satellite team in MotoGP, to enable a full factory alliance and Rossi’s brand endorsement.
Rossi and his loyal VR46 CEO Alberto Tebaldi only do things one way: first class.
“We have the deal with Aramco to make the team and in VR46 we are very happy because we work a lot for more or less ten years,” Rossi said. Even some factory teams don’t have naming rights deals matching the cash-rich new Aramco-VR46 deal. Ducati are favoured to cop the customer quids to supply bikes that would logically see Luca Marini and Ducati favourite Enea Bastianini as riders. Satellite teams get what they pay for - as proven by Yamaha recently when pointing out that Petronas SRT only had the budget to run Rossi on the 2021spec machine, leaving Franco Morbidelli on the 2019 M1. But while there is excitement at a new flagship team joining MotoGP in 2022, the AramcoVR46 deal triggered a backlash centred on the concept of ‘sports washing’ as a means of Saudi Arabia and other Middle East states distracting from their human rights record. Only time will tell just how much negativity will manage to attach itself to Rossi’s carefully crafted brand, but he brushed off the sensitive issue: “Maybe we can do something to improve the situation. But from our point of view the relationship is just for racing.” Rossi is not alone in inking sports deals with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Qatar. Seven time F1 champion Sir Lewis Hamilton - a high profile rights activist - will race for Mercedes Benz in Jeddah in the Saudi Arabian GP. And Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat, is a major investor in the Woking-based McLaren F1 Team.
And later in 2022 the FA will send an England team to the World Cup in Qatar. Without the Saudi dosh it seems likely that a VR46 team may have been lost to MotoGP.