VALENTINO ROSI

VALENTINO ROSSI

Tomás Aquado, Cesar Morilla, Pablo Bermúdez, Jorge Calabor and Xavi Gisbert.

Valentino Rossi was born in Urbino, and he was still a child when the family moved to Tavullia. Son of Graziano Rosi a former motorcycle racer, he first began riding at a very young age. Rossi's first racing love was karting. Fuelled by his mother, Stefania's, concern for her son's safety, Graziano purchased a kart as substitute for the bike. However, the Rossi family trait of perpetually wanting to go faster prompted a redesign; Graziano replaced the 60cc motor with a 100cc national kart motor for his then 5-year-old son.

Rossi won the regional kart championship in 1990. After this he took up minimoto and before the end of 1991 had won numerous regional races.

Rossi continued to race karts and finished fifth at the national kart championships in Parma. Both Valentino and Graziano had started looking at moving into the Italian 100cc series, as well as the corresponding European series, which most likely would have pushed him into the direction of F1. However, the high cost 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.

In 1993, with help from his father, Virginio Ferrari, Claudio Castiglioni and Claudio Lusuardi (who ran the official Cagiva Sport Production team), he rode a Cagiva Mito 125cc motorcycle, which he damaged in a first-corner crash no more than a hundred metres from the pit lane. He finished ninth that race weekend.

Although his first season in the Italian Sport Production Championship was varied, he achieved a pole position in the season's final race at Misano, where he would ultimately finish on the podium. By the second year, Rossi had been provided with a factory Mito by Lusuardi and won the Italian title.

125 cc, 250 cc and 500 cc World Championships

His first year in 125 Rossi makes a 9^th position. This year he win 1 race.

Rossi had some success in the 1996 World Championship season, failing to finish five of the season's races and crashing several times. He finished the season in ninth position and proceeded to dominate the 125 cc World Championship in the following 1997 season, winning 11 of the 15 races.

By 1998, the Aprilia RS250 was reaching its pinnacle and had a team of riders in Valentino Rossi, Loris Capirossi and Tetsuya Harada. He later concluded the 1998 250 cc season in second place, 23 points behind Capirossi. In 1999, however, he won the title, collecting five pole positions and nine wins.

Rossi was rewarded in 2000 for his 250 cc World Championship by being given a ride with Honda in what was then the ultimate class in World Championship motorcycle racing, 500 cc.

Rossi won his first 500 cc World Championship in 2001 (winning 11 races) in the final year of that class

MotoGP

Honda (2002–2003)

The inaugural year for the MotoGP bikes was 2002, when riders experienced teething problems getting used to the new bikes. Rossi won the first race and went on to win eight of the first nine races of the season, eventually claiming 11 victories in total.






Statistics

World Titles Championship	9
Wins	105
Podiums	177
Poles	59
Fastest Laps	87