Rossi: Motivation is to come back strong
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Valentino Rossi says his motivation to fightback from his poor run of results hasn’t wavered but calls the current trends around MotoGP contracts “strange” which raises questions about his own future in the sport.The Monster Yamaha rider has endured 13 consecutive races without reaching the MotoGP podium, while his last win stretches back to the 2017 Dutch Grand Prix, as he prepares to celebrate his 400th career start this weekend at Phillip Island.The 40-year-old remains bemused by his own career statistics, ahead of his 340th premier class race to go 95 races clear of Alex Barros in second place on the all-time top category starts list, but says his focus remains solely on returning to the front after a difficult campaign so far.While Rossi’s current Monster Yamaha contract expires at the end of 2020, the Italian has already expressed a desire to assess his results and performances next season before making a call on his future and has played down signing a new deal before the start of next year.“Now in MotoGP the situation is strange because you have to decide your future, your two-year future, before the first race of two seasons before that,” Rossi said, having signed his 2019-2020 deal ahead of the start of the 2018 MotoGP campaign. “So in the last few years everybody tried to sign as soon as possible and now the situation in strange because two years before you have to decide.“But about the motivation, when you have good results everything is easier because you enjoy it more. If you are in a difficult moment the motivation is to try to come back and to try to be strong.”Reflecting on his personal milestone, Rossi says he never imagined reaching 400 race starts at the beginning of his career and is delighted to celebrate the feat at Phillip Island.“It is something that you don’t expect, especially when I was younger, but in general across my career I never had a clear idea to see what has happened or how long I have raced,” he said. “When I was 17 already I saw guys that were 25 and it felt like your grandfather! Now I am 40, imagine.“But it is a good achievement which I didn’t expect also because I didn’t know what to expect when I started by career.“It is good to make the 400 here in Phillip Island as it is an iconic place for MotoGP and all the riders love the circuit because it is something special compared to the rest. It is one of the best places.“We pray, everybody prays, for the weekend weather to be like this with the blue sky and fantastic temperature but unfortunately the good weather has arrived a little bit too much in anticipation of the weekend so we will have to fight with difficult conditions at Phillip Island. Anyway, it is always a pleasure.”The nine-time world champion also confirmed he will continue with setup tweaks and style changes to his Monster Yamaha this weekend as he bids to end his run of bad results.”4After a hat-trick of fourth places across the Red Bull Ring, Silverstone and Misano, Rossi has struggled with extracting optimal rear tyre performance in race trim which has seen him take a pair of eighth place finishes at Aragon and Buriram before ing out of 11th place at Motegi last time out.Rossi has temporarily ditched Yamaha’s carbon swingarm and Suzuki-style double exhaust as he hopes to understand the front-running pace of both team-mate Maverick Vinales and Petronas Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo while he will continue to try a two-finger braking technique which he was spotted using in Japan.“It looks like with these bikes in the last period the way to brake is a little bit different so we tried some different things like two fingers,” he explained. “Yes, I think I will continue, because also here the front braking is a lot less demanding compared to Motegi which is one of the most difficult.”Rossi’s previous longest podium drought occurred during his Ducati stint when he went a whole calendar year (17 races) without reaching the rostrum between 2011 and 2012.The Italian has fond memories at Phillip Island with six premier class wins, plus his two victories during his 250cc days, while he has finished runner-up in both 2016 and 2017.
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