This weekend MotoGP returns to Mugello – Valentino Rossi’s home track, the circuit that he made his own with seven straight wins in the 2000s and where in a normal year the huge passionate crowd has eyes only for him.
But he arrives there in his worst MotoGP form ever, with his 2021 results for new team Petronas SRT Yamaha reading 12th-16th-crash-16th-11th.
And the clock is ticking fast towards his self-designated summer deadline for deciding if his form merits continuing to race in the premier class into a 23rd season in 2022.
So should Rossi retire or race on? Here are our writers’ thoughts:
Racing on is logical but risky
Toby Moody
Rossi is box office. I hate the expression that anyone is ‘bigger than the sport’, but in this instance he has been for over 20 years and arguably still is. Never mind girls screaming at him for autographs, everyone does it… I even saw Formula 1 driver Pierluigi Martini standing in the Mugello paddock trying to get a glimpse of Mr 46.
Dorna knows that he’s its Ali, Pele, Senna, Hamilton or Bolt and it wants him to stay as long as possible to keep the circuits happy when their contracts are up, so Dorna can charge a hefty fee for bringing the show to town, with everything cascading down from there.
Rossi wants to race still, as he believes he still has it; it’s in a racer’s DNA to get on a bike and believe he can whoop them on Sunday. And if there’s just one more chance to stand on the top step of the podium I still think he’ll say “thanks for everything and ciao” from that top step and quit as a winner. We’ll all applaud, well up and smile inside that he’s done it one last time before leaving us to all to happily ride off into the sunset.
The trouble is he hasn’t won a race since June 2017, four years and 67 races ago, and the chances of him winning a race in current form are rather slim. Even the most yellow-blooded of fans know deep down it isn’t on the cards unless there’s a 12-bike pile-up at the first corner of a bizarre wet race.
Commercial reasons can keep pushing to him to race – not just Dorna wanting him to stay but Rossi and his team can see the huge sales of his VR46 apparel (I suggest you visit the VR46 site and see for yourselves how big it is).
But the thing that scares me is staying on too long and having someone else’s accident, such as we saw last year in Austria. There were millimetres in it.
One of the most terrifying #MotoGP crashes we've EVER seen!!! 😱
Watch the Turn 3 accident from all angles! 💥#AustrianGP 🇦🇹 pic.twitter.com/L2GLToviFi
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) August 17, 2020
As Gerhard Berger once said, “Every time you crash you write a cheque; one day there’s no more money in the bank.”
Rossi’s ridden hundreds of thousands of kilometres (has someone got any idea how many after all the tests, practices and races since 1996?) and he’s fantastically still in one piece.
In that respect I don’t care for winning more races or records, I just want to see him quit while he’s healthily ahead.
He deserves to bow out in front of fans
Simon Patterson
Should the day ever come that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards finally decide to hang up the guitars and retire, it’s pretty obvious how the two will go out: with one last Rolling Stones world tour, a chance to play the greatest hits in front of millions of screaming fans. They’re not going to announce their retirement with a Netflix special or a series of intimate acoustic gigs.
And for the exact same reason, no one should be expecting Valentino Rossi to retire in front of empty grandstands.
The nine-time world champion isn’t the most recognisable name in motorcycling because he’s a nine-time world champion – he holds that role because he’s more than a bike racer. He’s a natural showman, and showmen need audiences.
Of course, while he might want to take one final bow in front of adoring fans across the world (every race, as we often joke, is a home race when you’re Valentino Rossi), it’s also a retirement strategy that makes complete commercial sense for MotoGP promoter Dorna.
Should Rossi announce next month that 2022 will be his final season and should the pandemic finally be behind us, then it’s going to be very hard indeed to find yourself a MotoGP ticket for any of next year’s races as fans swarm to see him for one last time.
And really, even if it is indulging the ego of a 42-year-old man, I’d argue that considering the impact on the sport that Rossi has made over the past three decades, it’s probably a farewell tour that he’s earned.
Stop right now, return for wildcards
Matt Beer
Every time I pipe up on the subject of Rossi’s future it’s with the unpopular opinion that he’s doing his extraordinary reputation no favours by continuing to race on this long past his prime.
The events of 2021 so far have only cemented that opinion for me, but also the slightly contradictory feeling that I desperately want him to go out on some form of high rather than the final race of his astonishing career being a miserable 16th place. I just fear that plugging on and on in an uncompetitive position is only going to get him further and further from the kind of finale that his career deserves.
So ideally I’d like Rossi to defy all the odds and get on the podium this weekend, then retire from full-time racing on the spot.
I realise that would cause a lot of sudden rider market headaches, but equally Rossi is the most powerful man in MotoGP and mentor of many of the best young riders around. He can easily help fix the jigsaw he’d be jumbling. And on present form, Petronas SRT wouldn’t be losing a lot on track with an immediate Rossi exit.
I do take my colleague Simon’s point that Rossi leaving MotoGP in the eerie setting of a fan-free event is unjust, though. On that basis, I’d love for him to have a proper 2022 farewell tour, on a factory Yamaha, with a part programme of his favourite tracks and decent preparation.
Bend whatever testing/entry limit rules are needed to make it happen for the man who transcended normal boundaries for so long.
It’s time to stop, but would you tell him?
Glenn Freeman
Unless there are some freak circumstances we don’t know about that have caused Rossi’s form to dip so much over 2020 and dramatically so into 2021, then it’s clear that time has finally caught up with MotoGP’s Peter Pan.
In a pure sporting context, it’s time for him to stop. The timing is good as he has plenty to keep him occupied and in the paddock with the ongoing expansion of his VR46 team. He can step aside and free up an attractive seat on the grid to a younger prospect.
But with all Rossi has done for MotoGP over more than two decades, who are we to tell him it’s over? There’s no-one on this planet that has the right to tell him what to do.
If, and this feels like a big if right now, he wants to keep going, if he’s getting some sort of enjoyment or satisfaction out of merely being a MotoGP rider, then no-one has earned the right to keep going and to call time on his own terms more than the great man.
If he decides to stay on for 2022 and it’s purely his decision because he wants to continue being a grand prix rider, I won’t be criticising him for it.
It’s overdue
Fatema Chowdhury
This could be because I didn’t watch Valentino Rossi during his glory days (showing my age, I know) or that I downright lack sentimentality as a human being, but I was ready for a Rossi retirement announcement in 2019.
That is not to take anything away from his remarkable racing achievements, superstar personality and all-round motorsport marketing holiness, but Rossi’s competitive racing days are clearly behind him. There’s a new crop of young talent that deserve the grid slot, so they too can begin to emulate his success for future generations of MotoGP fans.
I really thought that a move to the satellite Petronas Yamaha team might revive his hopes of returning to competitive form; I went as far as thinking he might even secure a win given the team’s level last season, but alas it’s been dogged by issues. Then again, even Franco Morbidelli has been able to deliver some results under difficult circumstances.
It would, of course, only be fitting that Vale gets the MotoGP farewell he truly deserves; in front of a sellout crowd, a weekend dedicated to all things VR46, with the race as the mere sideshow. But delaying that with another uncompetitive year, in the hopes that the global pandemic might wane enough for Rossi to have such a last hurrah, seems a bit redundant and marring his record with continued painful race results only undercuts his legendary status.
If he does decide to hang up his racing boots at the end of the season, a wildcard ride or even a farewell return at Misano next year would still gather the same crowds and muster the same interest because it is Valentino Rossi after all.
An M1 is worth more than this
Valentin Khorounzhiy
This year, Yamaha looks like it has its best chance at a MotoGP title in a long while, and that’s because it has Fabio Quartararo – the premier-class form man, who it seems can only be stopped by either inexperience or arm pump.
Quartararo would not have been on the bike if Dani Pedrosa didn’t choose to walk away at the end of 2018 and took up Petronas Yamaha’s offer. He would not have been on the bike if terms had been agreed with Jorge Lorenzo. It is possible Yamaha would’ve never found out how good Quartararo could be – maybe no MotoGP manufacturer would’ve, given his Moto2 form was nothing earth-shattering.
But that’s the beauty of that M1 bike. It is “cards on the table”. More often than not, when Yamaha has put a rookie on that bike, it knew almost immediately what they’re made of, what they can accomplish. Whether it be Johann Zarco, Jonas Folger, Quartararo, even Hafizh Syahrin, even last year’s practice-only Garrett Gerloff – when you put a MotoGP newcomer on the M1, you get a real good read on them.
When you have a package like that, you need to be super-eager to try out rookies. Even if you can’t poach Raul Fernandez or Pedro Acosta, there might be riders in there who have what it takes to be your next Quartararo.
In other words, what you don’t do is use that package for a retirement tour. Even if it’s sentimentally the right thing to do, and even if it will be beautiful – there’s certainly a place in sports, even at the top level of sports, for all of that. But the competitive price would be too high to pay.
