One rider in particular, half Rossi’s age, prompts these thoughts. He is Frenchman Fabio Quartararo, who has outqualified and (at the time of writing) has in the last four races outpointed not only Rossi, but also Rossi’s factory Monster Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales, in spite of the latter’s win at the last round in the Netherlands.
Quartararo has achieved this also on a Yamaha, and although in the same basic spec as the factory bikes, lacking the latest updates, direct input of Yamaha factory staff, in an all-new team and using an older front suspension.
More significantly, he’s a rank class rookie. He first rode a full-size 1,000cc racing bike at post-season tests last November, and has raced one just eight times. At three of those races he qualified on pole, and in the last two finished on the podium. It would probably have been three times, had his bike not failed at round four when he was a strong second.
Not to labour the Rossi comparison, but when Fabio was born, in Nice on April 20th, 1999, the Italian had already won his first 125cc title, six 250 races, and was on his way to the 250 crown.
The point is two-fold: firstly that a remarkable new talent has emerged; and secondly that he is just one of a swelling tide of youth that is already beginning to refresh MotoGP.