Rossi still rules in MotoGP

Natural ageing, then, has skewed the answer. Where once it might have been Geoff Duke, Giacomo Agostini or (most of all) Mike Hailwood, the various magazines or websites over the past ten years have tended towards another clear answer: Valentino Rossi.

As a Hailwood man myself, I like to remind my juniors how he dominated, left for a pretty successful career in cars, but then returned to two wheels to win twice more at the hardest track of all, the Isle of Man, in his very late thirties.

There’s another factor now, however, in Valentino’s favour. Having retired himself, his influence remains in absentia as strong as ever it was … not only as owner of a highly successful young MotoGP team and tutor to a champion, but as nothing less than saviour of the nation.

It actually started while he was still an active rider, with VR46 teams in the smaller classes. And a first championship in the intermediate Moto2 class in 2018 with Pecco Bagnaia, riding for Rossi’s Sky Italia-sponsored squad.

It is bearing full fruit now, in the third decade of the new century. Bagnaia won the premier MotoGP title last year, albeit riding for the factory Ducati team rather than VR46. This year he is locked in combat, with three races on consecutive weekends still to come at the time of writing, with Spanish Ducati rival Jorge Martin.

But third overall is almost certain to go to his next protégé, Marco Bezzecchi, who gave the VR46 team its first premier-class win this year, and followed it up with two more. It is only injury that took the 24-year-old future star out of the battle for the title itself, in only his second year in the class. A broken collarbone, sustained (ironically enough) in a dirt-bike training crash at Valentino’s now legendary training ranch close to his home town of Tavullia.

Once not so long ago, MotoGP was overwhelmingly Spanish. Valentino Rossi was almost a lone warrior for Italy, while Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa, Sete Gibernau and latterly Marc Marquez ran riot. It was even more like that in the smaller classes.

Now, while Spanish title challenger Martin has relatively distant national support from fading stars Aleix Espargaro, Vinales and the brothers Marquez. Bagnaia is just one of several thrusting Italian stallions – including the youthful Bezzecchi, Luca Marini (Rossi’s half-brother) and Enea Bastianini, though repeated injury has ruined his 2023 campaign. The trend is reversing.

Racers do it not for countries, but for themselves. It’s an individual sport. That doesn’t rule out national pride, and we’re seeing it in action. Driven by Valentino.

Back in his active years he watched with dismay as not only did dwindling Italian success in the top class depend only on him and Andrea Dovizioso, but the Spanish had swamped the smaller classes, where once Italian riders had been so strong.

He resolved to reverse the Spanish takeover and the Italian slump. He is succeeding.

Of the above-named MotoGP-class riders, only Bastianini is not a graduate of the VR46 Academy and training ranch. Bagnaia is the most senior alumni, and still an active participant in the constant training ranch battles, where Rossi is still the man to beat.

Bezzecchi and Marini are leading lights at the ranch, where former Moto2 champion Franco Morbidelli is another fearsome competitor in the informal (but deadly serious) exercises. Next year Morbidelli hopes to reverse his declining fortunes in the faltering factory Yamaha team by joining Ducati, alongside Martin in the (Italian) Pramac team.

These and a number of other riders have benefited not only from Rossi’s active riding tuition and support, and for some a ready-made high-level team, but also the other benefits of the VR46 Training Ranch, ranging from legal help in making contracts to English lessons, with much in between. And an air of bonhomie that they bring to the race-tracks.

Valentino has been only an occasional visitor to races over the past two years, otherwise engaged on weekends with his nascent car-racing career or his new family, with his first daughter born last year. But even without his presence, his influence matters.

For how much longer? He abandoned first his Moto3 team and then also that in Moto2 when he moved up to the top-class last season. Currently Italian influence has faded in the feeder classes. In Moto2, Spaniard Pedro Acosta dominates and will move up to MotoGP next year. And even more so in Moto3, where another new generation of Spanish boy-wonders have made the words “rookie sensation” almost commonplace. Perhaps it’s a bit too much for one man. Even if he is the Greatest of all time.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.