Marco Bezzecchi
Even though Valentino Rossi’s last few seasons in MotoGP were a difficult watch for his fans, he did register some sublime performances at times.
For years, the Italian rider was used to competing for the championship every season. Even though he rode until 2021, he didn’t win a title after 2009.
Rossi held on to a factory ride with Yamaha until the end of 2020, when he was forced to make way for Fabio Quartararo.
The next year, his ex-team became MotoGP champions again, so it ended up being a justified decision by them.
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Rossi thinks the MotoGP paddock is now more ‘professional’, now more than 25 years on from him starting his own career in the premier class.
Across all the laps he spent on track, Rossi’s ‘favourite’ to battle was Jorge Lorenzo, the three-time champion who was his teammate for seven seasons.
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Lorenzo felt Rossi should’ve had his ‘licence revoked’ after an infamous incident with Marc Marquez at the 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix.
It would end up denying him the championship, and it was the last good shot he ever had at achieving it. He let his emotions get the better of him.
Three years on at the very same track, but with nothing to fight for at the end of the season, he registered one of his most incredible performances.
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He set 15 consecutive lap times within one tenth of each other before falling off his bike at turn one and finishing 18th. Ex-teammate Lorenzo called it ‘unbelievable’.
“What he did in that race really shocked me and impressed me a lot, because I’ve never seen him so consistent,” he said on TNT Sports. “Just 15 laps within just one tenth. In a track that is two minutes, in 40 degrees or so weather is unbelievable.
“The precision, the accuracy, and concentration. I don’t know if I get this regularity and this consistency, just one tenth in 15 laps. Maybe I get close, but he beat me in that race, so that was very impressive.”
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How did Valentino Rossi fare across the rest of the 2018 MotoGP season?
Although Rossi managed to finish inside the top three of the championship in 2018, he had already taken his last victory before the season started.
He’d score five podiums in the first 10 races, before going dry for the rest of the year. He wouldn’t have been able to dethrone the dominant Marquez, anyway.
The highlight of his campaign was a second place at the Sachsenring, as he finished just two seconds shy of victory.
The last time he stepped onto the top of the podium would end up being the 2017 Dutch TT, on a day when he started fourth on the grid.
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