until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
While the first MotoGP machine to sport the name of nine-time world champion Valentino Rossi might have appeared in 2021, the 2022 season just past marked the VR46 team’s first as a fully-fledged satellite outfit. A long time in the making, it was the culmination of years of ambition – and one that, by all measures, was a very successful season for the squad.
In fact, such was its level of success last year that it has immediately drawn comparisons to the squad that Rossi finished his own MotoGP career with, Petronas Yamaha SRT – albeit with the Italian’s involvement likely to ensure a much more solid foundation than the ill-fated Malaysian team was built upon.
Coming into 2022, the idea of expanding into a full-scale MotoGP team was perhaps not that huge a task for the VR46 crew, considering that it had not only been a highly successful (indeed, championship-winning) team in Moto2 and Moto3 but that it had also dipped its toes into the premier class in 2021 thanks to a partnership with Ducati third-tier satellite team Avintia.
Running one Desmosedici for Luca Marini alongside Enea Bastianini’s Avintia-branded model gave the team an insight into the top class, with team boss Paolo Nieto and director Uccio Salucci able to see the challenges in stepping up. They soon established the team needed a more concrete effort for the coming year than simply a late partnership.
That led to a transformation for 2022: a full takeover, the switch to a full two-bike operation and the arrival of the team’s Moto2 frontrunner Marco Bezzecchi – a move that has proven to be wildly successful not just for him but for his team-mate Marini as well.
Coming into 2022, few had Bezzecchi tipped to be a clear favourite for the rookie of the year title, let alone a runaway winner, but that’s exactly what he managed to achieve – taking the award by a whopping 87 points over nearest rival, fellow Italian and Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio.
Consistently there or thereabouts, especially in the latter stages of the year, his 2022 highlight was undoubtedly an unexpected podium at Assen, where it briefly looked like even a maiden win might have been on the cards.
And on the other side of the box, the transformation in Marini has been obvious, as one of the championship’s thinking riders put his experience from the year before into his 2022 campaign to great effect. He came out of the season 12th overall, with a pole position to his name, and was unlucky not to have a first-time podium finish of his own to match Bezzecchi’s.
That season-long performance ranks up there with Petronas Yamaha’s own opening year, a season in which relative unknown Fabio Quartararo burst onto the scene with seven podiums and a very impressive fifth place in the championship standings.
And in fact, while Marini and Bezzecchi might have finished 2022 in 12th and 14th respectively compared to Quartararo’s fifth and his team-mate Franco Morbidelli’s 10th in 2019, those results arguably don’t stand miles apart given the way in which the championship has grown and strengthened in the intervening years.
So how much of that success has come from the two riders’ obvious ability and how much is a result of Rossi’s team using its considerable experience from the lower classes to transform itself into a slickly run operation?
There’s no questioning both Marini and Bezzecchi’s abilities, given that both were frontrunners in Moto2, but plenty of others who’ve had that same status have made the jump to the premier class on similar machinery and achieved nothing close to the same results. In that regard, Di Giannantonio (who scored 24 points to Bezzechi’s 111) is a useful benchmark.
Assembling a highly experienced squad, many of whom worked with Rossi in the past, and making the most of Ducati’s data-sharing in particular, allowed VR46 to very quickly establish itself within the series; even, in fact, finishing ahead of Honda in the team standings in 2022.
It’s an impressive feat for a fledgling team, and a very strong starting point for the future. Not receiving 2023 machinery this coming year but rather having both riders on 2022 bikes (no change for Marini but a promotion for Bezzecchi), should allow VR46 to even more successfully utilise its teamwork within the box, and should deliver even bigger and better things in the season ahead.
And while Petronas Yamaha might have burned brightly but eventually lasted a mere three years before the withdrawal of its Malaysian oil backer collapsed the squad, there’s considerably less chance of the same thing being allowed to happen to VR46.
Still relying heavily on seven-time premier class champion Rossi’s presence to market MotoGP, series organiser Dorna will do everything in its power to ensure his legacy remains as strong as it has started – something that bodes well for the team’s potential.
