Valentino Rossi left everyone in splits on more than one occasion during the press conference ahead of MotoGP’s season-opener in Qatar. Seated next to 19-year-old Fabio Quartararo, Rossi was asked the inevitable question – whether he feels old sitting next to the rookie, with the Frenchman becoming just the third rider to start a full MotoGP season as a teenager.
Rossi, who turned 40 last month, now finds himself racing against a rider less than half his age. And the Italian saw a funny side to things. “We speak now exactly about this, I said that he could be my son!” “He’s very, very young. (Born in) 1999, so it means that he’s also two years younger than my brother (Luca Marini) and already in MotoGP,” added the Italian legend.
Rossi is into his 24th Grand Prix season and there is no sign of him hanging up his helmet yet. While his longevity, love and dedication for the sport are unparalleled, he is without doubt past his prime with the Italian’s age reflecting in his recent results.
All but four of his 24 years in MotoGP have been in the premier class, where Rossi has claimed seven championship titles and holds the all-time win record of 89 victories. But as he enters final stretch of his career, not many give him a chance to become a world champion again. Some even doubt that he will win a Grand Prix race again.
Rossi finished a close third at Losail International Circuit last year, but – for the first time with Yamaha – didn’t win a race all season. In fact, the last time Rossi stood on the top of the podium was 20-months ago at Assen.
Despite pre-season struggle of Yamaha, Rossi topped the opening practice session of the season yesterday at Losail Circuit. But under the lights in the second practice, he dropped to 17th and was the only rider not to improve in the second session, leaving him 16th on combined times.
“And I hope to be there, I hope to be strong. Yamaha worked hard during the winter and we hope to be stronger than last year,” said Rossi before he took the bike out for practice yesterday.
“Under some points of view our bike has improved, but I think that we still have something to improve for sure. It’s true also that on the last day of the test there were a lot of Yamahas in the top seven, so I think we are strong with the new tyres, but after we need to see what happens in the race during 22 laps,” he added.
With Marquez and his teammate showing more pace than him yesterday, Rossi wasn’t sure of much success tomorrow.
“It’s difficult to say because in the last years here (Qatar) I did good results. Apart from one victory I was on the podium a lot of times, so we have to try. But if I have to think now, maybe we have seven or eight riders ready for the podium. I don’t know if we are stronger here than last year because anyway it was a good race. But we’ll see, we have to try. Also try to understand the conditions, with the grip, with the wind, we’ll see...,” he said.
Rossi says the 2019 Yamaha bike is a step forward and very fast over a single lap but remains concerned about race pace. “The pre-season tests were very important. Both in Sepang and in Qatar we’ve taken steps forward and we can say that we’ve done positive tests. We still have to improve a lot, but the road we’re on is the right one.”
Yamaha MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi of Italy (L) and Petronas Yamaha SRT’s Fabio Quartararo attend a press conference at Losail International Circuit. The 19-year-old Quartararo is 21 years younger than Rossi, who turned 40 last month.
