Why Valentino Rossi will Finish his Career on a Ducati – Part II
Valentino Rossi is acknowledged as the Greatest Road Racer of all time (GOAT). The Italian Superstar is already an 8 time World Champion with 6 of those coming from the premier 500/MotoGP class and he is on track for a 9th win this year. However despite his status the record books continue to show that the numerical GOAT remains another Italian, one Giacomo Agostini and Rossi is determined to end his career as the unarguable best ever. In this two part series, I will argue why he will do it on a Ducati. This is Part II. You may wish to read Part I of Why Valentino Rossi will Finish his Career on a Ducati first.
Vale now stands at 103 career GP wins, almost double that of Mick Doohan and 19 short of Ago’s 122. With Rossi’s winning percentage this gap could be closed in as little as 2 or 3 more seasons. Now that his car racing aspirations seem to have waned it looks increasingly likely that the GOAT will want to become the undisputed GOAT. Key question. On what machinery?
Rossi had seemed quite content with Yamaha even saying at one point he could see himself ending his career at the factory. However recently he has also been stirring that he might consider Ducati in 2011 (he is contracted with Yamaha through 2010). In his autobiography ‘What if I’d Never Tried It’ Rossi comments that although riding for the Italian factory was appealing he felt they had become too like Honda in terms of building a bike the engineers felt was perfect and requiring the rider to adapt to it. This is in contrast to Rossi’s approach which is to develop the bike to suit his requirements as evidenced by the Yamaha’s transformation from dog to front runner.
When asked about the 2011 Ducati rumours he replied:-
“I haven’t decided yet about my future, I will decide in the next year. I have a contract signed already with Yamaha (for 2010). For sure it is a great dream for everybody, to see Valentino with Ducati. We will see, I don’t know.”
link: MotoGP.com
In many ways the Ducati has become the new Honda of the paddock. Honda were infamous in the 2-stroke era for building the fastest but hardest to ride motorcycle always striving to make more power so that the so-called ‘Honda lanes’ could be in full effect without regard to the bike’s overall balance. The Ducati has always been fast and was clearly so in 800cc incarnation although the recent rule changes to curtail fuel capacity and number of engines per season has markedly reduced the margin of superiority.
Vale must be watching closely as the factory tries to transform it’s bike to suit riders not called Casey Stoner, a transformation that is beginning to have some effect for Nicky Hayden.
Rossi has also been making subtle overtures towards Ducati since Lorenzo resigned. He’s always admired Filippo Preziosi and just last week called the ‘father’ of the Ducati Desmosedici a phenomenal person and also stated that he is sure that he could tame the D16 if he could set it up the way he likes, but wouldn’t want to leave Jeremy Burgess and the rest of his team after ten years of challenges and so may wins.
link: TwoWheelsBlog
For it’s part Ducati has twice contacted Rossi about riding for the concern. Preziosi has openly commented they would like to have him ride for the team (who wouldn’t). Ducati has always had an Italian rider on their team (currently Canepa on the Pramac satellite squad). And it is clear that team sponsor Marlboro would have deep enough pockets to pay him since they reportedly offered his teammate, Jorge Lorenzo, a 7 million Euro contract which he ultimately didn’t accept.
Rossi has hinted at a move before stating in 2007 he might consider switching away from Yamaha and that the Italian factory would be his preference:-
“I have a good relationship with both Ducati and Honda but I would prefer Ducati because they are Italian.”
link: Twisting Asphalt
It is clear that there would be tremendous personal and marketing value created if Rossi, the premier Italian rider were to switch to the Italian machine. The impediments to it happening seem to be the approach of the Italian factory to racing which is slowly, but surely changing and the current superiority of the Yamaha. Over the transition from the 990cc era to the 800cc one, the Ducati has gone from a curiosity much like the Cagiva 500 to a championship winning package (and one that until recently had won the most races in the 800cc class to date).
ducatinewstoday believes that if Rossi keeps on winning, closing the gap to Ago and especially if Lorenzo continues to become a more competitive threat to him, Rossi will seriously consider a move to Ducati. Afterall it makes sense for the Italian to cement his greatest of all time tag on an Italian bike, just like his hero Giacomo Agostini did before him.
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So they give stoner the boot? They always want an American on the team for marketing reasons, is it worth drafting the Italian over US bike sales
There was only one thing wrong in this and it was that you said “Vale now stands at 103 career wins in the premier class.” He has 103 career wins in all categories.
Otherwise this was a great read.
@Kyle I think Hayden will get the boot if he doesn’t perform next year, especially if Stoner is back to form
@Robert, My bad you are right the 103 is Rossi’s total number of GP wins in all classes. I have made the correction
rossi will only ride from ducati if:
where ever burgess is, rossi will be, if ducati won’t hire burgess & team rossi won’t go. just like lorenzo in ’09, rossi has to stay with what the his main rival is riding, stoner has not been a treat since ’08 laguna, lorenzo and now spies (if he lives up to the hype) will insure that rossi can not risk wasting another year like ’07 if he can not ride the monster duc.
all in all there’s nothing like the treat of going to ducati, to get his demands meet by yamaha.
@jupiejupe I think you are right about Burgess. But Burgess has said he will retire when Rossi retires so if Vale is up for it, I expect Burgess to be too!
Thanks for the write up, is this purely speculation ? or based upon inside top secret knowledge?
I would love to see it happen !!!
@Paul It is all speculation on my part, but I believe all the stars are aligning for it to happen.