How a 'butt-kicking' helped shape MotoGP's newest winner

"In my opinion, the race went just fine." Those were Franco Morbidelli's first words in the post-race press conference at Misano he headlined after scorching to a maiden MotoGP victory in the San Marino Grand Prix.

Apparently nothing seems to faze the Petronas SRT rider. If the world of motorcycle racing and MotoGP is thrash metal, then Morbidelli is some laid-back reggae. More than most, he understands how to put things into perspective because it's not been the easiest of roads to Misano 2020.

Evidently an exceedingly talented racer from a young age, luck never quite seemed to be on his side. When Morbidelli was 11, he was signed onto Pramac's development programme, only for the deal to fall through. Lacking in funds to try and crack the world stage, he turned towards the World Superbike paddock and the European Superstock 600 class - hardly a breeding ground for future MotoGP champions.

And then tragedy struck. In January of 2013, Morbidelli's biggest fan and backer - his father Livio - committed suicide. The Italian motorcycle federation stepped in to offer its backing to allow Morbidelli to continue racing. He duly went on to win the 2013 STK600 title.

He would move into grand prix racing full-time in 2014 in Moto2 with Italtrans, and was taken under Valentino Rossi's wing in his VR46 Academy. Rossi has helped nurture some impressive Italian talent over the years, but Morbidelli is perhaps the most significant.

Morbidelli was the first to become a world champion, when he won the Moto2 crown in 2017 (below) after a dominant haul of eight wins for Marc VDS.

His step up to MotoGP in 2018 with the Belgian squad made him the first VR46 Academy rider to make it to the premier class. He was also the first to score a podium in MotoGP when he scored second in last month's Czech GP and is now its first premier class race winner.

That it came at the same track that seven years ago he won at in the Italian STK600 championship - something he thought about on his cooldown lap on Sunday - is more than just poignant coincidence. The 2020 MotoGP season so far has no form guide, but Misano is a clear Yamaha track - with the first Yamaha 1-2-3-4 in qualifying since 1988 confirming this.

On top of that, Morbidelli's SRT Yamaha is the 'A-spec' bike - essentially the 2019 M1, with no factory support in the same way team-mate Fabio Quartararo is receiving (though the Italian was given the holeshot device in Austria). As such, pre-weekend Morbidelli knew the significance of the coming Misano double-header.

"Facing the truth with a satellite package, you don't have as much developing as the factory package has. So, looking at this thing, these GP look like even more of an opportunity to perform well" Franco Morbidelli

"It is still relatively early in the championship for a package like mine to perform well," he said when Autosport sat down with him on Zoom on the Thursday of the San Marino GP. "And by saying this, I don't want to say that my package is going to perform worse and worse, as I hope that it is going to perform and be able to do what I was able to do in the first races also in the last race of the championship.

"But facing the truth with a satellite package, you don't have as much developing as the factory package has. So, looking at this thing, these GP look like even more of an opportunity to perform well, because it's relatively soon in the championship and I think that most of the factories didn't do too much development [yet]."

That's not such an easy thing to step up and do when you consider his main rivals at Misano were Quartararo, Maverick Vinales and Rossi. And perhaps a year ago, Morbidelli wouldn't be offering up much of a threat certainly to Quartararo and Vinales.

Last year wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, with a solid haul of six top six finishes netting him 10th in the standings in his first campaign on the SRT Yamaha. It's just that rookie sensation Quartararo came in and managed seven podiums across the year, scoring 77 more points in fifth in the championship.

"Looking at last year," Morbidelli continued, "I had, as you said, a good season, but tough as well because I never got my butt kicked by my team-mate in six years of world championship [racing]. Last year was the first time and it was pretty strong for me."

So strong, in fact, that Yamaha elected at the start of this year to renege on the factory support it had given Morbidelli in 2019 - a stinging statement of his perceived value if there ever was one.

"When he found out, he had a little trouble accepting at first," Morbidelli's crew chief Ramon Forcada told Autosport. "But then he used it as a stimulus and turned the tables, just like Fabio did last year."

Working with ex-Jorge Lorenzo and Vinales crew chief Forcada took some time to gel for Morbidelli last year, but it's clear both are firing on all cylinders this year. Fifth in the Spanish GP gave way to a podium charge in the Andalusia race, only for an engine issue to cruelly deny him. Strong throughout the Brno weekend, he led for over half the race before tyre wear dropped him into the clutches of KTM's Brad Binder. Still, second got the podium monkey off his back.

Morbidelli's 'butt-kicking' by Quartararo has made him a much stronger rider mentally, something which almost certainly helped him overcome the horror Austrian GP collision with Johann Zarco - though he did admit in the Styria race it had understandably caused him to be more cautious. Nevertheless, that mental toughness has translated to an on-track strength too.

"I think it's a combo of many small things," Morbidelli said when Autosport asked him how he overcame his 2019 beating. "I do believe that [motorcycle racing] is a mental sport and if you do things that make you feel well outside of the track, I think you will see it also on track. I tried to change the situation during the winter, and actually we've seen the results this year.

"I'm able to beat Fabio in some practices, I'm able to beat Fabio in Brno for example. I wasn't able to beat him in every Sunday, so I think there is room to improve. And I think I still have to improve, but definitely I'm a step ahead compared to last year when I was getting beaten. This year, it's a radius step ahead. I know in this world you don't have too much time, so I'm trying to do the steps that I have to do as fast as possible."

One of the keys to this has been SRT's desire to continue with Morbidelli beyond 2020 for two more years in a season where Rossi is yet to pen a deal (though he will be SRT-bound in 2021) and multiple race winners in Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso are on the market. If Yamaha had knocked his confidence, rider-friendly SRT certainly instilled it.

"It's a confidence injection," Morbidelli said of his contract renewal. "And it's also a weight coming off your shoulders as well, because when you have your future secured and you're sure that you're still going to race another two years with the same team, with the same bike, with the same people around you, your mindset gets a little bit different and you work with a little bit of a different type of my mindset."

"The thing that I've been thinking the most was just the people that have been helping me. I thought also about the struggles of last year, but I've been thinking mainly about positive things" Franco Morbidelli

That mindset is now yielding MotoGP wins, and the significance of his Misano victory cannot go unnoticed, given it came on a day where Quartararo looked destined to be second-best after a sluggish start, before he ultimately crashed out because he was "too excited" when he got stuck behind Vinales. Not that the effortlessly cool Morbidelli took any opportunity to point this out.

"I had a chance to think about many things and all of them were positive," he said after the race when Autosport asked if Quartararo's nightmare day coinciding with his first win offered some satisfaction. "The thing that I've been thinking the most was just the people that have been helping me. I thought also about the struggles of last year, but I've been thinking mainly about positive things, all of my friends and all of the people that I love."

Morbidelli's first win also came against the backdrop of him becoming MotoGP's first star to publicly join world sport's stance against racism, sporting a helmet design inspired by the Spike Lee film 'Do the Right Thing'. On the back was printed the message "equality" in numerous languages to show that "we are all the same". He's a good egg, is Morbidelli.

And thus, it's not hard to understand what Rossi saw in him all those years ago. Only 25 now, Morbidelli exudes Gandalf levels of wisdom, and is an absolute wizard on a motorcycle. That both he and Rossi will share a garage next year is another poignant piece of symbolism - the master passing on the throne to his heir, as it were. Not that Morbidelli has anything else on his mind other than doing exactly what he did at Misano and going toe to toe with Rossi.

"I'm looking forward to fighting with him, and this is what I'm always looking forward to also right now," Morbidelli said when asked by Autosport what being team-mates with Rossi will mean to him. "I mean, when I cross swords with Vale on track, it is a different feeling.

"I'm just thinking about putting my tyres in front of his tyres. And this is what I want to do. Also, to show him that he made a good choice in believing in me when I was a young kid racing in Superstock."

With his San Marino Grand Prix victory, there can be no doubt about Rossi's choice now...