Valentino Rossi in his final year as a driver of a works team – with a sceptical view of a completely new future as a private driver for the Petronas Yamaha SRT Team from Malaysia. After an absolutely pleasing first half of the season, almost nothing went together from the second race in Misano 2020. Things did not get any better in the first 4 world championship laps of this year, until Le Mans was the first ray of hope. He was about 1.5 seconds short of the top ten.

The old master is still uncertain about his future prospects

As for his future in MotoGP, Valentino Rossi was rather cautious about the deadline for deciding on his further career. After all, the Italian gave the media a deadline on record in his home country when he stated “I will decide after 9 races“. The icon of the Grand Prix from Tavullia would therefore like to assess his future based on the results he will achieve in the first nine races. He already betrayed a tendency to do so when he announced “I can’t make any promises, but I will try to be there again in 2022“. This would mean that the Yamaha rider will take stock after the Assen Grand Prix.

Valentino Rossi (Petronas Yamaha SRT) before the start of the French Grand Prix at the Bugatti Circuit in Le Mans – the 9-time world champion cannot yet definitely decide what his future should look like. At least as a racing driver, he still wants to take his time.

Latest date of the decision according to Rossi: June 27th

With Mugello and Barcelona, two racetracks follow on the calendar, on which the veteran has very good memories, but also has setbacks. He once broke a leg in training on his home track, but that was some time ago. In the last 5 races from 2015 to 2019 he did not see the chequered flag twice, but was on the podium twice and once in fourth place. At the Circuito de Cataluña near Barcelona, the last two races were marked by failures, while before that it had two podiums, an eighth place and even a victory in 2016. After the GP of Catalonia there is only the Sachsenring, definitely without spectators and then with aces the hour of the decision.

Valentino Rossi’s fall in Portimão – before that he had only achieved twelfth place as the first countable result. In Jerez de la Frontera there was a finish outside the points and an 11th place in Le Mans.
The current World Championship status of all three classes – the two main actors of the last two decades, Rossi and Marquez, are only in the back third of the table. Nobody can imagine any more, that one of the two has anything to do with the outcome of the Championship.

>Mugello preview: see separate report on this page.

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