The Doctor Is In
Valentino Rossi's switch to full-time auto racing meant going back to basics and potentially settling in below the sport's pinnacle. He couldn't be more content.
When it comes to stacking championship motorcycle and automobile racing careers together, it will be hard to out-do John Surtees.
The Englishman sped to seven grand prix motorcycle world titles and a Formula 1 driving championship before he turned 31. He remains the only racer to win world titles on two and four wheels.
Valentino Rossi's professional driving career is just getting started. And while he's not in Formula 1, the legendary motorcycle racer's early success has some wondering whether he will soon add a four-wheel series triumph to a trophy case that boasts nine grand prix world titles—seven of them in MotoGP.
But if there's another championship in Rossi's future, it will come not as a result of pursuing one goal, but via a series of them.
"My target is try to be one of the strongest GT drivers and try to win some important races like Le Mans or Spa or Bathurst," he said during an insightful appearance on the Over The Limit podcast hosted by brothers and fellow endurance racing drivers Laurens and Dries Vanthoor.
Rossi made the full-time switch from bikes to cars in 2022. But as ardent Rossi fans know well, his competitive four-wheel experience goes back much further.
"I started with go karts," he said, bagging an Italian regional championship and a top five at the national level early on. "I was quite good."
His father, a former motorcycle racer, bought Rossi a bike when he was 10. He dabbled in both for a few years, but the high cost of karting soon steered the family to bikes full-time.
Rossi never looked back, but he didn't abandon cars completely.
"I always [had] a big passion for car racing from the beginning," said the man whose level-headedness and precision earned him the nickname "Il Dottore"--The Doctor-- in his home country. "So I tried every year to race cars."
He tested for the Ferrari Formula 1 team several times in the 2000s, turning down a related offer to join Minardi and work his way up to the legendary Maranello-based scuderia.
Soon--as his schedule permitted--it was regular GT events, usually in a Ferrari. In the 2019 Gulf 12 Hours in Abu Dhabi, he co-drove to a pro-am class win, finishing third overall in a Ferrari 488 GT3.
Rossi announced his retirement from motorcycle racing in August 2021 and rode his last race three months later. He wasted little time getting back to his original motorsport love, however, inking a deal to race sports cars with Belgian squad W Racing Team--better known as WRT.
"I spoke with all the manufacturers to try to understand them," Rossi said.
He ended up in an Audi. But it was the team’s focus, not WRT's factory connections, that won Rossi over.
"Everybody wanted me because I'm Valentino Rossi from motorcycles," he said, suggesting some prized his star power over his driving potential. "But I wanted to race. I'd had enough of the rest."
WRT Principal Vincent Vosse shared Rossi's vision.
The moto legend turned sports car newcomer needed a team where he'd be welcomed, not worshiped. Perhaps most importantly, Rossi's lesser-known but more experienced teammates couldn't be shy about teaching him.
"When [Vosse] spoke to me the first time he said, 'We have to put you in the right environment,'" Rossi said. "He spoke about the sport, spoke about a real program.
"At the beginning I didn't understand," Rossi continued. "But with experience, I understood that for me, it is crucial to be on a team like this, because I can learn from the other drivers."
Rossi is proving to be an adept student.
After two years in the Fanatec GT World Challenge series, he added WEC LMGT3 duties to his 2024 schedule--all with WRT, and all in BMW M4 GT3s. (WRT became a BMW factory-backed team in 2023.)
In that span, he shared in six major-series podiums--five in Fanatec GT and one in this season's WEC 6 Hours of Imola. He also bagged a GT3 class win with a last-lap pass in a 2023 Road to Le Mans event, part of the annual undercard for the main event.
Rossi made his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut this year alongside co-drivers Ahmad Al Harty and Maxime Martin. The team dropped out in the ninth hour, but not before spending a chunk of time leading the LMGT3 class; Rossi spent much of his lone stretch behind the wheel--a triple stint that lasted more than two hours--pacing the field.
Given his trajectory, a WEC win seems inevitable. As for stepping up to pinnacle--WEC's Hypercar class--Rossi's path is less clear.
An ACO news release in the lead-up to Le Mans quotes Rossi as saying he'd like to test BMW's Hypercar "as fast as possible," adding that it "probably won't happen until the end of the season," around the WEC series finale in Bahrain.
"I want to try the car," he said on the podcast. "When you open the throttle, the Hypercar is fast. I want to feel it, and also the grip in the corners. I want to understand my level."
No matter what he discovers, Rossi insists he's content.
"For sure, driving the Hypercar is the dream, because it's the MotoGP of endurance," he said. "But I don't know if I'm fast enough.
"If I become a stronger GT driver, I'm happy," he said. "If I have the chance in Hypercar, why not? But that is not my target."
References
Over The Limit podcast—https://www.buzzsprout.com/2094610/15441286
Ferrari tests—https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/valentino-rossi-and-ferrari-in-f1-what-might-have-been-862154/3009695/
Turns down F1 seat—https://www.planetf1.com/news/valentino-rossi-rejected-ferrari-minardi-f1-seat
Rossi-Abu Dhabi pro-am class win—
https://us.motorsport.com/endurance/news/valentino-rossi-ferrari-podium-wins-class-gulf-12-hours/4613401/
Rossi in the Hypercar as fast as possible—https://www.24h-lemans.com/en/news/2024-24-hours-of-le-mans-bmw-is-back-58710
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