Valentino Rossi(The doctor) MOTO Gp team Yamaha

Valentino Rossi

Valentino Rossi (born February 15, 1979 in Urbino) is an Italian professional motorcycle racer and multiple MotoGP World Champion. He is one of the most successful motorcycle racers of all time, with 7 Grand Prix World Championships to his name. In 2006, he narrowly missed an 8th title by scoring a second place in the Championship, and with one race to go in the 2007 season, he lost out again, this time to Australian Casey Stoner. According to Sports Illustrated, Rossi is the 7th highest earning sports personality in the world (2nd outside the United States), earning an estimated $30 million a year.

Following his father, Graziano Rossi, Rossi started racing in Grand Prix in 1996 for Aprilia in the 125cc category and won his first World Championship the following year. From there, he moved up to the 250 cc category, again with Aprilia, and won the World Championship in 1999. He won the 500 cc World Championship with Honda in 2001, the MotoGP World Championships (also with Honda) in 2002 and 2003, and continued his streak of back-to-back championships by winning the 2004 and 2005 MotoGP World Championship after leaving Honda to join Yamaha.

The early years
Valentino Rossi was born in Urbino. Son of Graziano Rossi, a former motorcycle racer, he first jumped on a bike at the age of two, and his astounding career progressed in leaps and bounds.

Rossi's first racing love was actually go-karts. Fuelled by Rossi's mother, Stefania's, concern for her son's safety, Graziano purchased a go-kart as substitute for the bike. However, the Rossi family trait of perpetually wanting to go faster prompted a redesign; Graziano replaced the 60 cc motor with a 100 cc national kart motor for his then-5-year-old son.

Although Valentino showed interest in such things as his guitar and playing football (soccer) his interest in school and study waned. Shrugging off his mother's attempt to get him to attend football school, he found more interest in the gravel pits and various motorcycle GPs.

Graziano attempted to forge documents in an attempt to get Valentino's junior kart licence one year before he was legally allowed (he was 9 at the time), but ultimately failed.

Valentino won the regional kart championship in 1990. At the time, a new craze had taken over. The minimoto had now become his weapon of choice, and before the end of 1991, he had won 16 regional races.

Although minimoto was for fun, he continued to race karts and finished fifth at the national kart championships in Parma. Both Valentino and Graziano had started looking at moving him into the Italian 100 cc series as well as the corresponding European series, which most likely would have pushed him into the direction of Formula 1. However, the high financial burden of racing karts led to the decision to race minimoto exclusively. Through 1992 and 1993, Valentino continued to learn the ins and outs of minimoto racing, steadily racking up win after win. He had a good career and still is the leading Moto GP racer.


With Rossi growing in talent, it became abundantly clear that a proper motorcycle was required to further his progress. In 1993, Rossi acquired a Cagiva Mito 125 cc motorcycle, which was damaged in a first-corner crash no more than a hundred meters out from pit lane.

The bike was repaired, giving Rossi an opportunity to correct his first-corner mistake, only to crash it going into the second corner. It was an amusing yet trying moment for Rossi, who was hoping to decide whether motorcycles were really for him.

Valentino ended up finishing ninth that race weekend. Although his first season in the Italian Sport Production Championship was varied, he consistently improved his skills, leading to a pole position at the season's final race in Misano, where he ultimately would finish on the podium. By the second year, Rossi had been provided a factory Mito by Cagiva team manager Claudio Lusuardi and cruised to the Italian title.

MotoGP
2001 had turned out to be the swansong for the 500 cc World Championship; the 500 cc giving way to the newly created MotoGP class. The two-stroke 500 cc were rapidly being replaced by four-stroke 990 cc engines, allowing the factories to provide their riders with staggeringly fast motorbikes. Honda outfitted their factory riders with the RC211V, a liquid-cooled V5 four-stroke with traditionally odd aerodynamic aesthetics but phenomenal speed.

2002 was the inaugural year for the MotoGP bikes and with all riders experiencing the same teething problems getting used to the new bikes (or dealing with the inferior 500 cc bikes), it was all Rossi needed to grasp the Championship with two hands from the very first race and never let go of it. Rossi won an astounding 8 of the first 9 races of the season, eventually claiming 11 victories in total.

It was more of the same in 2003 for Rossi's rivals; Rossi claimed 9 pole positions as well as 9 GP wins to his third consecutive World Championship. The Australian GP at Phillip Island in 2003 is considered to be one of Rossi's greatest career moments due to the unique circumstances in which he claimed victory. After being given a 10-second penalty for overtaking during a yellow flag due to a crash by Ducati rider Troy Bayliss, 1st-place Rossi proceeded to pull away from the rest of the field, eventually finishing more than 15 seconds ahead; more than enough to cancel out the penalty and win the race.