Carry On Doctor - Valentino Rossi interview

At the start of this year, some brave souls picked Rossi as their potential champ, with the one big question mark being the Yamaha M1. As history now states, Rossi did indeed win MotoGP at his first Yamaha attempt, in what will go down as one of the great team efforts ever. We show how the balance of MotoGP power was shifted, as Yamaha brought the mountain to their own new Mohammed.

O

ur man Niall Mac swept into the Valencia MotoGP with a mission in mind - cornering the King of Cornering, Valentino Rossi. Niall was, as ever, successful, as he lightly grilled the new champ on both the sunburst and moonshine sides of his character. So, over

to Niall...

"I first met Valentino Rossi just over ten years ago at a mutual sponsor's barbecue near Imola. He was there with his father Graziano, who informed me that young Vale was doing OK racing mini bikes and hoped that one day he would ride a 125cc GP bike. I shook his hand and wished him luck, never thinking for a moment that the young enthusiast might turn out to be a GP winner. Sixty-eight victories and six world championships later I caught up with him in Valencia, after final qualifying. Once again I found him polite, helpful and relaxed. Spookily he reminded me of my very own doctor..."

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILDHOOD MEMORY OF THE GP PADDOCK?


I have some pictures of me with my father Graziano in the Imola paddock when I was a very small child in 1980. My first real memories are from the Italian GP at Mugello in 1993 when I was fourteen. I had paddock passes and it was like paradise.

DID YOU KNOW THEN YOU WANTED TO BE PART OF GPs?


Yes, for sure. It was a big dream that one day I could become part of the paddock and be a Grand Prix rider.

IS THERE ANYONE THAT IMPRESSES VALENTINO ROSSI?


Oh yes, for sure. I like many sports including football and I particularly like Ronaldo, so when it is possible I go to see him play.

In motor sport I am a big fan of the World Rally Championship and I think drivers like Colin (McRae) and Carlos Sainz are impressive. When I competed in the UK round of WRC a few years ago I met many of the drivers and it was there I realised how good they were.

IN YOUR OPINION WHICH IS MORE DIFFICULT, WRC OR F1?


F1 is also incredible but in my opinion you have to work much harder in WRC. F1 is very like MotoGP, the tracks, the lines, the power and the braking is very similar. In WRC everything is continually changing and car control is much more difficult. For me it would be much more difficult to reach the top level in WRC.

WHO IS THE BEST EVER RIDER?


I think it could be between Lawson, Rainey, Schwantz and Doohan because I saw them all racing. But then some people will say Agostini, Hailwood or Surtees, although I don't know because I didn't ever see them race. This will always be a difficult question to answer.

FROM THE PAST, WHO DO YOU THINK WOULD HAVE BEEN THE TOUGHEST RIDER TO RACE AGAINST?


Over one race I think Kevin Schwantz would have been the hardest but he was never very consistent. Over a season I would say Wayne Rainey would have been the toughest to fight with for a championship.

COULD YOU STILL ENJOY SKIDDING ROUND A MUDDY FIELD WITH YOUR FRIENDS ON PADDOCK BIKES?


Of course. I have two or three friends that I know would always have a good time riding with me on any kind of bike. What we really like to do is ride Supermotard bikes with motocross front tyres and enduro rears, but not on asphalt, only sliding around off road. I do this in the winter for fun but also because it is good training. For this I use a factory YZ450F. We also still ride mini bikes (minimoto), as this is still a great passion of mine.

On some Sundays in the summer we get up early and do some riding on the road. I have an XJR1300 which I find more relaxing to ride on the road than my R1, which is too fast.

CONSIDERING YOUR SUCCESS YOU APPEAR TO LEAD A SIMPLE LIFE. WOULD YOU AGREE?


In racing I try 100% but afterwards I try to keep my life exactly as it was before. I have the same friends and do the same things that I have always enjoyed. For sure my life has changed and sometimes it is a little difficult, for example I'm not able to go where there are a lot of people.

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU SPEND TOO MUCH MONEY ON?


I love to buy cars, music and shoes, which I think is normal!

I LOVE GRAZIANO BECAUSE HE LIKES TO SLEEP IN HIS CAR. HAVE YOU EVER DONE THIS AND WOULD YOU NOW?


Yes. I have done this in another part of my life but not any more. Graziano is a fantastic guy but maybe a little strange and he likes to make a point. I am less strange than him but whatever he wants to do is fine by me!

LAST YEAR THE M1 HAD ONLY ONE PODIUM. WHAT WAS IT THAT MADE YOU THINK YOU COULD WIN ON IT THIS YEAR?


I had a lot of doubt about this bike but when I began talking with the Japanese and Davide de Brivio at Yamaha I loved the way they were thinking and the determination they had about how to get back to the top level. Yamaha had just been through a bad year but I didn't think the M1 was that far away from the Honda.

DO YOU THINK THIS YEAR WOULD HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT JEREMY BURGESS AND HIS TEAM?


I tried 500% to get Jeremy to come with me to Yamaha but he said no and told me I was crazy. But I decided I would still go alone to Yamaha but thankfully after a long fight Jeremy and the guys decided to come with me.

DOES THAT MEAN IT WOULD ALSO HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE ON THE DUCATI, SUZUKI AND KAWASAKI?


No, I really believed it was only possible to beat Honda if I was riding for Yamaha.

Niall, uncharacteristically, Found himself in the odd position of having to give something away before he got out of the gravitational field of Rossi and his minders.


"One question for you, Niall?" said Vale.


"Er, Yes...?" replied Niall.


"Can I keep this funny Scottish hat?" asked Vale, sheepishly.


"Deal!" said Niall - who had earlier, of course, put the hat on expenses.


"CIAO!" waved Vale, on his way to even greater greatness.

THE YAMAHA FACTOR

Much of the credit for the massive turnaround in Yamaha's fortunes is down to a change of mindset and personnel backup even before the arrival of Rossi. Yamaha had developed a losing culture for 12 seasons, and with their 50th anniversary approaching in 2005, they were determined to break it - by breaking up the old factory team.

Masao Furusawa, the boss of current operations, came aboard in June 2003 to sort out the mess Yamaha had got itself into.

From his first words, it's clear why Rossi joined Yamaha and not anyone else. Furusawa san is as urbane as a captain of industry, but as combative as a Samurai. "We have been beaten by the enemy for 12 years, so my first target was reorganisation," he stated, shortly after Rossi lifted the crown in Oz. "I wanted to combine all the technology in Yamaha motors, using a scientific method. Not using intuition. Secondly I selected good people to make a good bike. We also had a plan to replace the people who have been there five or six years. I would also like to make Yamaha Racing like a training school for Yamaha engineers. Before we used some engineers only for racing. In the two-stroke racing era that was OK. Now the four-strokes are in vogue, so we came up the idea to change the structure of the organisation, for a much more scientific approach."

Furusawa also recognised that they had to have the best rider, or the combination of Honda and Rossi would have been too much to beat. Asked what Rossi's contribution was, he states: "The first thing Valentino has contributed is his riding skill. It is fantastic, incredible, extraordinary." Effusive praise, but it gets more analytical, and brings in the other half of the pit garage equation. "He has a very smart brain, and after he felt something from the bike he explained what the problems were. Not in engineering terms but in terms understood by our engineers. Sometimes we did not understand and then Jeremy Burgess would translate it into engineering terms. That was a very good combination for our team.

Also Valentino gave a great deal of emotion and enjoyment to Yamaha, and not just us but to many spectators and racing fans."

The best rider and the best PR tool ever to come from the GP paddock, and now Yamaha has him. A nice piece of business all round for those guys. A business they want to continue, according to Furusawa. "We have not spoken to Valentino yet about an extension to his contract - but I hope we can keep his contract for ever!"

Rossi himself has said he would like to see out his bike racing career with Yamaha. And why not? With Burgess looking after the metal, Italian Team Director Davide Brivio being Rossi's contact man and link to the management, and Lin Jarvis the big Euro boss (and the man who made it all possible), Rossi had a bunch of people round him who gave him the understanding he needed to do the job they will continue to demand, in the nicest possible way of course. To win the title.

HOW DID THEY DO THAT?

WE bet that Yamaha are really hacked off with themselves now that they have rediscovered the secret of winning the World Championship.

There really is no big secret - and they knew the secret all along anyway. It's how they used to do it.

You just pair the best rider with a good enough bike and make it work all around the tracks of the world, weekend after weekend.

That's just exactly what Wayne Rainey used to do on his Yamaha YZR two-stroke. Never lauded as the best of the identikit 500cc strokers, the YZR 500 was still good enough to let Rainey work his championship magic for three straight years, from 1990 to '92.

With Rainey and his pit crew, winning was expected. In Rainey, Yamaha had a rider who could ride over, round and often through the imperfections of the machine.

Same as Rossi did with the

M1 this year. See, it was easy - if a little (alright, very) expensive and exhaustingly hard work.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

In 2003 the Yamaha M1 secured a single podium, and a right slagging from the riders who conducted their business on it. They were almost as vociferous as the previous M1 incumbent, Max Biaggi, a rider who at least scored wins in its first year, 2002.

So what turned last year's pup into this year's lion?

Well, you'd be surprised how much of the M1 is basically the same as the 2003 model. The main change is to the engine, with the

M1 now going from a conventional across-the-frame four to a 'simulated vee', which means that the actual crank design has been altered, so that the engine now fires two cylinders close together, and the others shortly after.

The big benefit is in traction and engine response, and most of all

it makes the bike feel more similar to the vee-five Honda Rossi is used to riding.

The turnaround in the machine is best described by the overall Yamaha Racing Chief, Masao Furusawa. "This year the first thing I did was change the engine, to make much better power delivery to the rear tyre. That is what you can call the big bang or growler engine. I still don't believe the 'big-bang' theory itself, but we changed the engines! We then increased the horsepower step by step."

A series of small steps for Yamaha, a giant leap for MotoGP.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

It was a simply astounding year for Valentino Rossi, who had already broken a record of sorts by becoming the first rider in recent history to voluntarily leave Honda after winning the world championship with them for three years in succession. The stats stack up like this:

• In winning the first race of the year at South Africa, he became the first rider ever to win back-to-back races in the premier class for different manufacturers.
• He was the first rider since Barry Sheene to win the first four races of consecutive years in the top class.
• In winning nine races in the 2004 season, he scored two more in a single year than any Yamaha GP rider before him.
• His 304 points score is a new record for any Yamaha rider and came despite two DNFs.
• Rossi took five pole positions, including the first two at Welkom and Jerez.
• He became one of only four riders to have won four consecutive world championships in the top class, the others being Giacomo Agostini, Mick Doohan and Mike Hailwood. How's that for company?
• Rossi has now won the MotoGP World Championship on three different types of machine - a two-stroke vee-four, a four-stroke vee-five and an across-the-frame four-stroke four.
• Rossi's MotoGP winning record, of all premier class starts he has made since 2000, is currently 42 wins from 79, a staggering win
  
  ratio of 53%.

This feature was first published in the January 2005 issue of TWO