A little more than three years have passed since Valentino Rossi officially confirmed the end of his rich career, which he ended at the end of the 2021 season.
And yet, despite the Doctor being busy competing on four-wheelers at GT level since then, the highlights of Rossi’s remarkable career continue to spark discussion and debate even today.
Indeed, while Rossi was never too far from controversy at his peak, his infamous incident with Marc Marquez during the 2015 Malaysian weekend remains the most contentious.
It’s a topic the two arch-rivals have continued to comment on in the years since the incident itself, which began with Rossi and Marquez sparring with each other in a pre-event press conference and led to The Italian accuses his rival of helping his compatriot and then Rossi’s teammate, Jorge Lorenzo, in the fight for the title.
“In Malaysia, I went against him (Markes) at the press conference because I wanted to try to expose him, to tell everyone what he was doing, so that, maybe, he would give it up.”Rosi said in a podcast.
“Besides, since it had nothing to do with it anymore, Lorenzo and I fought for the world title.”
“If you’re fighting for the title, maybe you understand. But if you don’t have a relationship with each other, you’re not even a partner to either of them, you have to have respect for your rivals.”
“You need to do your race, to try to win and that’s it. Who forces you to do something like this? But at Sepang it hurt and bothered me during the whole race.”
With heightened tensions off the track spilling over onto the track – sparking their infamous crash and the penalty that ruined the Italian’s title hopes. Rossi gave a detailed and fiery account of how the controversy continued to play out away from the camera in the hours and days after the event
“He tried three or four times to make me fall and luckily I didn’t fall. I got close to him and looked at him to say, ‘Enough, what are you doing?’ Only then did we touch each other, I didn’t want to knock him down, but he fell.”
Contributing to Rossi missing out on his eighth 500GP/MotoGP riders’ title, the former Honda, Ducati and Yamaha rider admits he harbors bitterness over the incident as he goes into detail about how the controversy played out behind the scenes.
“That made me lose the championship, also because they made me start last in Valencia.”
“After the race, they invited me to the Race Directorate. I was with Masimo Meregali from Yamaha, and Marques with his manager Emilia Alsamora.”
“Alsamora started insulting me, I asked him why he was there if he wasn’t from Honda. There was a semi-argument. In the end, Mike Webb (race director) announced that I would start last in Valencia, something that has never happened in MotoGP.”
“If they thought I crashed Marquez on purpose, they should have made me do it, but they didn’t and they made me start from last place in Valencia. They cut off my legs and I lost the championship.”
“Marquez was there with his head down. I told him he would continue that throughout his career, because it’s disgusting for the sport to lose like that.”
“The moment Mike Webb said I should start last in Valencia, my blood rushed because I knew I had lost the title. But my first reaction was to look at Marques, who looked up at Alsamora as if to say, ‘We did it.’.”
Source: www.moto-berza.com
