VR46 in MotoGP
Rossi isn't just a fast motorbike racer.
Afew years ago, I was compiling my own MotoGP bucket list. At that time, I was still yet to see an Italian MotoGP at Mugello. A seasoned veteran of the MotoGP Press box kindly advised me that top of that list, for any MotoGP nut for that matter, should be that trip, crucially, before Valentino Rossi retires from racing. Why? Well, simple. In his words “Once he’s gone, we’ll most likely never see scenes like it ever again. Think Beatlemania turned up to eleven.”
I’m a firm believer that no man or woman is bigger than the sport. There are a few, however, that transcend their sport and come pretty damn close. Fewer still come as close Valentino Rossi. Talk to your average moto-muggle (nonmotorbike folk) about MotoGP and you’ll likely get a few gone-out looks. Mention Valentino Rossi in the same sentence and you’ll generally get ‘Oh yeah I’ve heard of him.’
Incredibly, Rossi is now in his 24th season at the ripe old age of 40. Even more amazing than his enthusiasm is the fact that he is still right at the sharp end of the fight and still capable of challenging for wins and championships.
Yet sadly, all things must come to an end. Okay, so maybe Rossi has a portrait of himself in his loft that ages with every year that passes, whilst he stays the same age. In the absence of any proof of said painting, there has been plenty of speculation (for about the last ten years) about what the MotoGP landscape will look like when the man dubbed the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) takes the chequered flag for the last time and finally hangs up his leathers. Will it be a post-apocalyptic wasteland as predicted by some doommongers? After all, it’s thanks in no small part to Rossi that the sport is bigger than it has ever been.
Fast Bikes were lucky enough to be granted exclusive access to Rossi’s vision for the future, his Sky Racing Team VR46. We spent the day speaking to Team Manager Pablo
Nieto, himself part of one of the great MotoGP dynasties, departing 2018 Moto2 World Champion Pecco Bagnaia, and Rossi’s brother and 2019 title contender, Luca Marini.
There are many reasons why Valentino Rossi has become the global face of MotoGP, the man that has transcended his sport and, in the process, unquestionably defined the modern era. Sure, he wouldn’t have achieved any of it without his undoubted talent and ruthless, unrelenting pursuit of speed. He has chewed up and spat out too many rivals to mention; he’s won championships against the likes of Biaggi, Gibernau, Stoner and Lorenzo in their prime; and despite the 10th title eluding him for now, he’s one of only two riders to finish a season ahead of Marc Marquez in the top class. Aside from this, his effortless sense of style, his cutting wit and his constant re-invention have played just as big roles in the story.
This essence of Rossi, his DNA, seems to permeate every pore of the Sky Racing Team VR46 project and philosophy. This even extends to the team’s hospitality unit in the paddock. One of the more modestly sized units. Pound-forpound one of the coolest. A sleek, polished, Art-Deco style building complete with neatly trimmed box hedging, tinted windows and, of course, adorned with the stylishly understated Sky livery. Step inside and you immediately get a feel for why the team is rapidly becoming one of the biggest recent success stories in the sport. Everyone genuinely looks like they’re working the greatest job in the world.
Riders sitting down to eat with their mechanics. Press officers, crew chiefs, friends and family all having a laugh and a joke. This is far more than just superficial.
Indeed, the family atmosphere in the camp and the Italian home away from home they have created, plays a crucial role in the success on the track as Pablo Nieto is quick to point out. “The most important thing for me is that all the people you have working for you have to be happy. This is really, really important, because if the people are happy to work, then the riders are more relaxed.”
It’s this kind of detail and precision that hasve played pivotal roles in Rossi’s stellar career as a rider. Now as a team owner, this emphasis on attention to detail starts with Rossi himself and filters down through the whole team.
There may only be four riders in the World Championship level squads - Dennis Foggia and Celestino Vietti Ramus on KTM machines in Moto3, and Nicolò Bulega and Luca Marini on the new Triumph powered, Kalex bike in the Moto2 class. This, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. The talent scouting network runs deep. Team VR46 has an official partnership with Italian mini-bike team RMU. Their roster of ex-pupils is a who’s who of some of the best young talent, including such names as Fabio Quartararo, Nicolò Bulega, Pecco Bagnaia, Enea Bastianini, Aron Canet, Luca Marini, Manuel Pagliani, Tony Arbolino and Dennis Foggia, to name just a few. At RMU they start ‘em young. Nine and ten-year olds begin learning their craft on fully adjustable 50cc and 70cc miniGPs. From here they progress to 80cc, 125cc and then 250cc pre Moto3 bikes. It’s here they start to develop an understanding of the electronics side of the sport.
The next step is the VR46 Junior Team. It’s at this point, from about the age of 14, that the riders fall fully under the guidance of Rossi, his trusted Sporting Directors Alessio ‘Uccio’ Salucci and Aberto Tebaldi, and Pablo Nieto. This is where they’re introduced to the top-level development at the VR46 Academy, the Moto Ranch and Misano –- handily right on their doorstep.
Any assertion that these riders have ‘won the lottery’ or just been plucked from obscurity can be swiftly dismissed. By the time they arrive at the Academy they’ve already been competing regularly at a high level for a good four or five years and they’ve earned it.
According to Nieto, the importance of this top-level training is almost impossible to overstate. “It’s really positive for everyone. First of all because Valentino is always there,” he says. “Valentino is fighting [on track] with young riders like Dennis [Foggia], Luca [Marini], and [Niccolò] Antonelli. So many young riders that are going really, really fast.” Of course, this benefits both the Academy riders and Rossi. “It’s really
important to Valentino to fight with them, but also for them it’s really important to fight with Valentino. All the riders from the Academy are learning a lot and they are privileged to be with Valentino.”
The level of competition within the team and the wider Academy is vital to the success of the project. The ferocity of the competition whilst training means that every team and Academy member is driven to give 100% in every session. Rossi’s half-brother Luca Marini, and Moto2 race winner with Team Sky in 2018, feels that this quality over quantity is incredibly valuable.
“The quality is much more important, to stay all together and train together every time is much better because you can compare yourself and your speed on the track and also your physical condition in the gym, or running, or cycling,” he says.
Indeed, Marini’s unwavering dedication to his training is a trait shared with his brother that sees him head into 2019 as one of the Moto2 title favourites: “It’s very important to push yourself to the limits, over the limits. Every time, I give 100% in the training because I want to stay in front of them [the other VR46 Academy riders] at The Ranch, but also with the pocket bikes, the minimotard or motocross, everything. This is really important for the World Championship.”
Pablo Nieto, himself a 125cc Grand Prix winner, is perfectly placed when it comes to having experience of dealing with the pressures that come with having a famous sporting family. Nieto’s father was the late and very much great Ángel Nieto, who famously won 12+1 championships (he had a superstitious refusal to ever use the number 13) and 90 Grands Prix. Nieto feels this is something Marini handles particularly well, indeed using it to his advantage to hone his performance and race-craft: “For us [Nieto and Marini] it is different. Why? Because we are born like this and we have all this pressure from the beginning.
“The best thing with Luca is that he is growing up with this and he learns a lot from his brother. This is really, really, really important because also the character of Luca is incredible. He’s really professional, he wants to work a lot and this makes the difference. His brother showed him that it’s not only the talent, but you need to work. Now we can see the results.”
Luca takes it all in his stride and feels a remarkable lack of pressure. He’s clearly inherited some strong genes when it comes to turning other people’s perceptions to his advantage: “I don’t feel any pressure because my pressure of what I want is a lot, because I want to win. I don’t feel more pressure for being in this team.”
The more time you spend with the team, the more you see just how the environment they create forms the beating heart of their shared successes.
The role of Sky Italia who cover MotoGP in Italy and back the team financially can’t be overstated. Marini describes them as the perfect partner.
Valentino Rossi is incredibly astute when it comes to the media side of the sport. In the digital age the visible profile has become everything. It’s no longer simply enough just to be fast on the track.
Rossi expects everyone within the team and the Academy to be able to carry themselves in the public eye to an
exacting standard and be role models for future generations. As well as the physical training, all team members take regular English lessons and media training at the Tavullia headquarters. It has even become an annual tradition that the team launch the new bikes, with all riders present, live on the Italian version of the X-Factor. Imagine that in the UK? The thought of Simon Cowell straddling a British Talent Cup Moto3 machine is not an image I care to dwell on. The riders are every bit as comfortable on the stage and on screen as they are on track.
Of course, the net result of all of this is that Rossi and Sky Racing are producing a rapidly increasing number of well-educated, eloquent and polite, young Italian adults, who all speak comfortably in two languages, some in four or five. Coupled with the fact that they are some of the quickest young riders on the planet, the rise to the top for both the Sky Racing Team and the VR46 Academy has been astonishing. The VR46 Junior Team has already won two Spanish FIM CEV Moto3 Championships, first with Nicolò Bulega in 2015, then Dennis Foggia in 2017. Franco Morbidelli became the First VR46 Academy rider to win a World Championship, claiming the Moto2 title in 2017. Also that year, the Sky Racing Team competed in the Moto2 Championship for the first time. The absurdly talented, then rookie Pecco Bagnaia won the Rookie of the Year, finishing fourth overall. He followed up that success in 2018 by winning the title in spectacular fashion. In only their second season in the class, this was a huge achievement. All four Sky Racing riders head into the 2019 season with genuine race winning and/or title aspirations.
When Bagnaia claimed the 2018 title in Sepang, his celebration was so spectacular that it is right up there with the very best of Rossi’s trademark stunts. Mid-way round the circuit the team popped up an impromptu garage, completely stripped the bike, and replaced every visual element to emerge with the now famous gold livery. Perhaps the most meaningful part of the livery was Bagnaia’s special gold helmet, which was missed by many. On the reverse were the faces of all those people from behind the scenes, from the very top to the very bottom. Bagnaia wanted to make it clear to everyone that it’s these people’s shoulders that he has been standing on for the last two years that have given him this platform to perfect and then showcase his talent. This quote from Rudyard Kipling’s Law of the Jungle is an entirely fitting way to sum up the Sky Racing philosophy: “For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack”
Bagnaia us understandably excited and at
the same time typically relaxed at the prospect of stepping into MotoGP this season, which he does with Alma Pramac Ducati as team mate to Jack Miller.
“It’s a big jump because all the idols I’m seeing when I was little, now I will ride in the track with Valentino, with Lorenzo, with Dovizioso, with all the fastest men in the world and it is an incredible feeling. For sure Ducati is maybe the best bike,” he says.
If Bagnaia’s pre-season testing is anything to go by, maybe he’ll end up ultimately being the first Sky Racing Team VR46 and Academy graduate to win a MotoGP title. At the Sepang test he was second fastest with a blistering best lap time of 1:58.302s. Maybe another Rookie of the Year crown beckons?
What Valentino Rossi, the Sky Racing Team and the VR46 Academy have done and continue to do for Italian motorbike racing is breathtaking. They have made becoming involved in bike racing an aspiration again for millions of young Italians. No longer are just the biggest names in the sport the heroes for the next generation, but thanks to the media partnerships with Sky and the profile that the riders have across all forms of social media, you’ll regularly see kids with posters of Moto2 and Moto3 riders adorning their bedroom walls. This is translating in real time to the track.
The championships across the board are increasingly full of Italian flags. Maybe when Rossi finally does call it a day, we might even see a Sky Racing Team VR46 Factory Yamaha MotoGP team. I certainly wouldn’t bet against it. Rossi truly is a modern-day Peter Pan and his Sky Racing Team and VR46 Academy are his band of Lost Boys in the best possible sense.
Dorna and the millions of dedicated MotoGP fans need not worry about the future of the sport when Rossi stops riding. There will be no drop-off of doom. In one form or another he is going to be around the sport for decades. This will be his true legacy. The sport will be immeasurably stronger than it was when he came into it.
The future’s bright. The future’s yellow.