Sport.co.uk Profile: Valentino Rossi
Posted by Sport.co.uk on: 26 June 2009 - 13:29
Author: Claire Danaher
Name: Valentino Rossi
D.O.B: 16 February 1979
Birthplace: Urbino, Italy
Nickname: The Doctor
Team: Fiat Yamaha
World Championships:
125cc – 1997
250cc – 1999
500cc – 2001
Moto GP – 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2008
Valentino Rossi won seven World Championships in Grand Prix racing by the age of 26, cementing his place in the history books.
He is the youngest rider to have won World Championships in all three classes.
He is the son of 1970s racer Graziano Rossi, and he began racing as a teenager, first with karts, then with minimotos (minibikes).
He won his first 125cc World Championship in 1997 with Aprillia, and went on to win the 250cc World Championship in 1999, before moving to the Honda and the 500cc category.
The 500cc World Championship was rebranded as MotoGP in 2002 and the regulations changed with engines going from 500cc to 990cc. Rossi won the last World Championship at 500cc and the first MotoGP championship with 990cc engines.
Some said that Rossi could only win with Honda as the bike was considered much more advanced than the rest of the field. However after taking three World championships with them, Rossi moved to Yamaha in 2004. He proved the critics wrong by winning two more consecutive titles in 2004 and 2005.
Rossi had two years out of the top spot when Nicky Hayden won the World Championship in 2006 for Honda and Casey Stoner winning for Ducati in 2007.
Rossi got back to winning ways by winning the 2008 MotoGP world championship, his sixth in the premier category and his eighth in total.
In the 2009 MotoGP season Rossi has stiff competition from his Fiat Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo and Ducati’s Casey Stoner.
Rossi and Lorenzo had an incredible battle at the Catalunya Grand Prix in Barcelona which saw the lead change three times on the last lap before Rossi took his 99th career win on the last corner.
In 2009 Rossi and fellow Italian motorcycle legend Giacomo Agostini did a lap around the famous Isle of Man TT course, in an exhibition lap which was named ‘the lap of Gods.’