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Rossi: "Sogno da sempre la F1"
"Le quattro ruote sono una passione"

La due giorni di prove con la Ferrari della settimana scorsa ha fatto tornare d'attualità il tema del futuro di Valentino Rossi, che potrebbe essere in Formula Uno. Lui rivela a crash.net di averci pensato fin da piccolo: "Le quattro ruote sono un'altra delle mie grandi passioni. Ho cominciato nei go-kart ed il mio sogno era di diventare un pilota di F1". Rossi nel 1990, a soli 11 anni, vinse la sua prima gara nei kart.



Se il buongiorno si vede dal mattino, l'eventuale approdo di Rossi in Ferrari rischia di diventare uno dei tormentoni della prossima stagione. Il campione di Tavullia sarà ancora a bordo di una Yamaha in MotoGp, ma con tutta probabilità proseguirà ed intensificherà le sua apparizioni sulle quattro ruote di Maranello. E' lo stesso pesarese ad ammettere che questo è un suo sogno d'infanzia: "In passato ho parlato di Formula Uno - si legge su crash.net - perché le quattro ruote sono una delle mie passioni, ho cominciato nei go-kart ed il mio sogno era di diventare un pilota di Formula Uno".

In effetti la carriera di Rossi cominciò proprio sulle quattro ruote del go-kart, come spesso accade a quelli che poi diventano grandi campioni di Formula Uno. Chiedere a Michael Schumacher. Correva l'anno 1990 infatti quando quello che sarebbe diventato uno dei più forti motociclisti del mondo vinceva la sua prima gara nei kart alla sua prima esperienza agonistica. Verrebbe da dire un predestinato. Rossi tuttavia non si fa illusioni: "Credo che il mio passaggio in Formula Uno sia molto difficile e che forse sia meglio che io resti sulle due ruote". A meno che non decida di cedere alle lusinghe del rally: "Faccio sempre uno o due rally a stagione. Forse in futuro questo diventerà il mio sport perché c'è meno pressione".

adesso la sfilza di artocoli di crash.net su Rossi




Rossi to be Ferrari test driver

The latest rumour to be sparked by Valentino Rossi's return to a F1 cockpit is that the six-times motorcycling world champion could become an official test driver for Ferrari.

Italian magazine Autosprint quotes 'Ferrari sources' as saying that during Rossi's latest test, conducted in private, the Italian lapped within 1.5secs of Michael Schumacher's lap record around the Fiorano test track.

Rossi is also said to have covered 375km over the two days, which meets the 300km minimum required when applying for an F1 superlicence.

Ferrari currently employs Marc Gene and Luca Badoer as their official test drivers and will field Brazilian Felipe Massa as a replacement for Rubens Barrichello, alongside Schumacher, for the 2006 racing season. Rossi has already committed to MotoGP with Yamaha next year, but is free to choose his future after that.

A testing contract was traditionally seen as the first step towards an F1 race drive, although 'professional' test drivers - with no realistic chance of graduating to a race seat - are now frequent throughout the rich end of the F1 grid.

It is thought Rossi would be unable to accept an 'official' Ferrari testing role while racing in MotoGP due to sponsorship clashes.

Rossi: Las Vegas is a very strange place!


Shortly after finishing second and third in the US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, Valentino Rossi took an eye-opening trip to Las Vegas with American team-mate Colin Edwards.

"Las Vegas is a very strange place! One time in your life it is good to see," said the Gauloises Yamaha rider of his visit. "I stay with Colin, we take a limousine and go around in the night with some friends of Colin... It was a good time for sure!"

Laguna Seca marked only the second time this season that Rossi has lost a race, and the first and so far only time that he has been beaten by team-mate Edwards.

Rossi: This is my biggest problem...


Valentino Rossi makes the business of winning look deceptively simple at times - and the Yamaha star admits that his biggest problem is that it can often look much easier than it actually is.

"This is my biggest problem! Maybe it is better if I finish the race with lots of sweat and with my eyes sticking out and say something stupid (laughs)," he smiled. "No, I think it is my character. During the race if I win, or if I don't, I feel more or less quiet and try to understand what has happened so that, for example at Laguna, I can be stronger next year.

"It is never easy. I always, always try and - for example in the race at Barcelona with Gibernau - there was one point where he went very fast and took 0.7secs advantage, then my front started to slide and I think maybe this time it is impossible. But after he also started to have the problem and the situation came better - but it is never easy.

"Also in Assen, I think I'm very much faster than Melandri, I try to go in front ten laps from the end and I say 'now I take the advantage' but then Melandri came back - it's always difficult," he insisted.

Rossi has only lost two races from ten starts in the 2005 MotoGP season so far.

Rossi: Formula One or Rallying?






Valentino Rossi has made no secret about his love of four-wheel racing, a fact underlined by his recent Ferrari F1 test - an outing that marked the second time he had driven for the legendary Italian team - but is the much talked about switch to F1 really likely?

"I talk in the past about Formula One because four-wheels are another of my great passions, I start in go-kart and my dream was to become a Formula One driver," said Rossi, speaking before his second test with Ferrari. "But I don't know if it is possible. It think it is very difficult and I think for me it is better that I ride the bike."

So you wouldn't rule a move to Formula One out? "I think it would be very difficult," said Vale after a long pause.

Meanwhile, before the F1 outings Rossi had been linked with rallying and was even seen, briefly, driving a Peugeot WRC car at the 2002 Rally of Great Britain (in which he crashed out on the second stage).

"Rally car I race a lot - I make always one or two rallies at the end of the season and I will continue to do that. Maybe in the future that will become my sport, because there is less pressure," he stated.

The latest Rossi rumours suggest he may be offered the role of an official test driver at Ferrari... and might also get the chance to test/race a new Fiat World Rally Car.

Rossi on Graziano

One of the most influential figures in the brilliant career of Valentino Rossi has been his famously laid back father Graziano, himself a former racer who - despite his son's fame - sleeps in the back of a BMW estate when he attends MotoGPs.

Graziano won three 250GPs on his way to third in the 1979 world championship with Morbidelli, then claimed two podiums to finish fifth overall in the 1980 500cc series with Suzuki. But just how important has he been to Valentino's career?

"First he was important because he gave me the passion for the bike," said Rossi of his father. "Maybe if Graziano make another work or another sport I wouldn't have had this passion to be a rider. Also, when I started racing he knew a lot of people and it was more easy for me to find the first bike, so I have a good chance for sure."

And does Rossi still get advice from Graziano?

"I speak a lot with him because he is clever and always gives me clever advice," said Vale. "When I first started riding, when he said something I didn't listen - because I was young - but now I listen more, I think that is normal. We don't speak so much about riding now, but more about tactics for the race. He also tells me to try to always understand something when I'm riding."

Nevertheless, Rossi then revealed that Graziano perhaps needs to follow some of that advice himself – and that his father's own wild style hasn't mellowed with age.

"Yes - he was quite crazy (on a bike) and also now when he goes on a bike, or sometimes in the car, it is like he has lost a little bit of the concentration - he always makes big mistakes when he races!" smiled Valentino.

Rossi: I do like fast friends

Valentino Rossi has rejected claims that he ends friendships with other riders if they start to threaten his superiority, by revealing that he has gone out of his way to ensure that his relationship with Marco Melandri - which is alleged to have soured when the Movistar Honda rider began challenging the world champion this season - remains good.

"No. I think this is not true," replied Rossi, when asked if he deliberately avoided friendships with his closest rivals. "With Melandri, when this year he start to go fast, especially the Italian journalists, try to put some bad things between us - to make fight like what happened between Biaggi and Doohan.

"But I go to speak to Melandri after Shanghai, on the podium, because I say one thing and the Italian journalists they modify and say to him another thing - and also the same journalists come to me and make the same.

"I know Marco from minibikes when we were friends - we've been friends for more than ten-years - so I try to keep a good relationship because I don't like a bad relationship with anybody," he insisted. "For sure I have had a bad relationship with Biaggi and Gibernau but I don't think that is the right result."

But does he believe that the rest of the MotoGP grid is now intimidated by him, after his total dominance in recent seasons?

"No, but for sure everyone want to beat me because I win a lot and the other riders want to win," said the Italian, who claimed his 76th GP victory last time out in Germany. "More or less everyone knows that I will be very fast and strong at every race. For the other riders I think it is difficult, but I think it is a good motivation to try and beat me."

Rossi: Every clever rider is scared.





Valentino Rossi falling may have been a fairly frequent occurrence during his first year in the premier-class - as illustrated by this picture of the Italian spectacularly highsiding from his Nastro Azzurro Honda in 2000 - but the #46 soon adapted to the power of the fearsome 500cc machines and by the time MotoGP turned four-stroke in 2002 a Rossi fall was a rarity.

The switch from Honda to Yamaha from 2004 then saw Rossi forced to push the limits further, losing control several times as a result (lower pics), but the now six-times world champion has only suffered relatively minor injuries during his racing career - despite being the fastest rider in one of the world's most dangerous sports.

Even Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, Rossi's statistical equivalent in Formula One, has broken a leg - and he races encased in space age carbon fibre chassis, equipment with numerous crumple zones. Rossi has a few millimetres of leather separating himself from the hazards around him.

As such, it is perhaps not surprising that the 26-year-old still worries about suffering a nasty accident - but believes that every clever rider is scared, and that fear is needed to keep him on, but not over, the limit.

"We make a lot of work, especially me, for more safety in our sport. Now the bikes are very fast and we try to improve the safety of the circuit with a lot of run-off area everywhere," he said. "But every clever rider, I think, is scared. This is because our sport is dangerous and fear is important to understand the limit - to stay quite near the limit but never go too much."

In an attempt to increase safety further, it has been announced that the engine capacity for MotoGP machines will be cut from 990cc to 800cc from the 2007 season onwards. Does Rossi agree with that move?

"For me, this development - to make the four-stroke 800 - is a good idea because if not the bikes will become too fast," he declared. "Every year the bikes become faster and faster - the development between 2002 and now is incredible. Speed, acceleration, power - the four-stroke development is never ending - it's not like the two-strokes."

Rossi has suffered two minor accidents so far this season, but has stayed on both wheels in all ten races - eight of which he has won to hold a huge 120-point lead with seven races to go.

Visit the Crash.net MotoGP channel for seven more #46 stories, which complete our 'Rossi day' coverage...