Valentino Rossi closes the curtains on his stellar MotoGP career after 26 Grand Prix seasons
Valentino Rossi, the most famous name from the world of MotoGP had announced his retirement ahead of the 2021 Austrian Grand Prix in a special conference. Rossi joined the MotoGP world in 1996 having made is debut in the 125cc class. Following that, he went on to build a scorecard of nine world titles, 89 race victories and a total of 199 podiums in his career. Rossi also created the VR46 racing academy to help young riders live the dream of the MotoGP world. Now, while the news has saddened the paddock and the viewers of MotoGP, we took this opportunity to dig through some statistics of ‘The Doctor’ in his 26 years of Grand Prix career.
Here’s a few stats from his star studded career:
Rossi is the rider with the most consecutive podium finishes in the top category starting from the 2002 Portuguese Grand Prix to the 2004 South African Grand Prix.
84 per cent of Rossi's 235 podiums have come from the top two levels which is MotoGP and 500cc
Barcelona Catalunya and the Assen TT circuit are some of Rossi's most successful tracks as he has won them 10 times.
The win at the 2017 Dutch TT made him the seventh oldest rider (38 years, 129 days) to win a race in the premiere class championship
In the special press conference, Rossi revealed that his thoughts on retirement from MotoGP formulated during the summer break. He also revealed that his aim would be to move to racing cars after completing the current year of MotoGP. There was a brief period where he considered joining his own team Sky Racing Team VR46, but then decided to drop the plan seeing it as a short term project. During the interview he also explained that 2001, 2004 and 2008 were some of his most memorable years from the 26 years of his career. He added that even though the years with Ducati (2011-2012) were something of a challenge for him, he still managed to fulfill the dream of an Italian rider racing on an Italian motorcycle.
Valentino Rossi’s emotions were quite on the jolly side during the conference even though the news shattered the hearts of millions around the world. He said that he was proud of switching on the emotions in the people watching the sport and trying to get them involved in a deeper sense. Rossi will surely be missed from the world of MotoGP but there are still nine more races to enjoy the racecraft of The Doctor.
