Why MotoGP's ageing rock star isn't clinging to the limelight

Before this season got underway, this writer considered Valentino Rossi to be like Deep Purple's Ian Gillan. A legend, no question about that. But a shade of his former glory. Still a star name, but not able to hit that soaring scream in 'Child In Time'.

And there was some justification for that. Rossi went from scoring six podiums in the opening half of the 2018 season on the Yamaha to just two in the same time period last year. And the 2017 Dutch TT still remains his last win.

In the last 10 races of 2019, Rossi was either fourth or eighth, and this ultimately netted him seventh in the standings - or to put it into context, third-best Yamaha and his worst championship position since that miserable first season on the Ducati in 2011 when he scored just one podium.

All of this was further highlighted by the emergence of rookie sensation Fabio Quartararo on the 'B-spec' Petronas SRT Yamaha (a 2018 M1 with a detuned 2019 engine), as the Frenchman guided the bike to six poles and seven podiums, giving world champion Marc Marquez something to think about.

Rossi's team-mate Maverick Vinales managed two wins, at Assen and in Malaysia, on his way to third in the championship. While the Yamaha may have had its problems, Vinales and Quartararo were proving it wasn't a bad bike. And so, that really wasn't an excuse Rossi could reasonably fall back on.

"Last year, I was very frustrated because especially from Mugello, after the first races, after Le Mans when I did some good races, some podiums, we lost the way," Rossi said on Friday.

"I struggled very much. Mugello was a nightmare, Barcelona was not so bad but I had the crash with [Jorge] Lorenzo. But after, Assen was a disaster, Sachsenring was a disaster, and also some races at the end of the year like Aragon, or Valencia."

And it wasn't just this writer who had his doubts. Now 41 years old, Rossi knows at some point soon the bell will toll, and his MotoGP career will have to come to an end.

When Yamaha asked him at the start of the year to sign a new contract to continue, Rossi refused and wanted to use the first six or seven races of 2020 to evaluate his performances. Yamaha subsequently moved to secure Quartararo and Vinales on two-year contracts to stave off a lurking Ducati.

Yamaha clearly knows the commercial benefits of having Rossi on one of its factory bikes. That's why it has helped broker a deal with SRT, which was finally announced today. But prioritising locking down a rider half his age and another not much older was a clear sign of what Yamaha believed Rossi could realistically achieve on one of its bikes.

PLUS: What factory Yamaha exit means for Rossi

When that announcement came back in January, Autosport published a feature in which this writer said: "The optics of a nine-time world champion, once operating essentially under factory protection, stepping down to a satellite team does still leave a lot to be desired." This is something double MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner hinted in June when he said: "It is disappointing to see someone who in his day any team would have paid a real fortune to be relegated to a satellite team."

"At first, I was almost angry with Yamaha, because it seemed a dry one-year contract, which was certainly the last. But I told them that it will certainly not be the last and that we will have to see how I go" Valentino Rossi

There is certainly an element in all of this which suggests Rossi doesn't hold the cards he once did. When he left Honda to join Yamaha in 2004, and switched from Yamaha to Ducati and back again in 2011 and 2013, he was able to take his entire crew with him. In 2021, he will have just three members from his current team in crew chief David Munoz, data analyst Matteo Flamigni and rider coach Idalio Gavira.

Rossi was also thought be agreeing a 1+1 deal, but has signed just a single-year contract.

"At first, I was almost angry with Yamaha, because it seemed a dry one-year contract, which was certainly the last," he said on Thursday. "But I told them that it will certainly not be the last and that we will have to see how I go."

SRT is well within its rights to stick to its guns. After all, it has worked hard to cultivate a strong unit and the on-track results speak for themselves. In the two years it has been in the premier class, it has scored 11 podiums and three wins, as well as securing full factory support from Yamaha. One could easily see all of this as another showing of doubt in what Rossi can truly offer.

But it would be wrong for anyone (and this includes myself) to doubt Rossi's desires and his ability anymore. The 2021 season will be Rossi's 26th in grand prix racing, and the reality is he has nothing to prove. His place in legend is assured, his records - while quickly coming under threat from Marquez - will still stand as a monument of true sporting greatness. And to millions of people across the world, he is and always will be the greatest of all time. A rider still capable of podiums is solid enough and will always be.

But that isn't good enough for Rossi, because he knows he can be better and can still win races. And over the winter, he made changes to try and unlock a new level within himself to take another step. At 41, that can't be easy to do - just look at Michael Schumacher's disappointing three-year Mercedes stint when he returned to Formula 1 in 2010, albeit with the caveat that Rossi has enjoyed a continuity that the seven-time F1 champion lacked after his first retirement in 2006.

It's not the first time Rossi has made big changes to ensure he stays in front. He spent his entire career working with legendary crew chief Jeremy Burgess - who engineered Mick Doohan's five 500cc world titles between 1994 and 1999 - until 2014 when the pair parted ways and he brought in Silvano Galbusera. Rossi duly won two races in 2014 and was runner-up in the championship before launching his ultimately unsuccessful title bid the year after. And as his lean 2019 continued, he decided to try something new again and brought in David Munoz as his crew chief for 2020.

Munoz was Francesco Bagnaia's crew chief on his way to the 2018 Moto2 title for the VR46 team, but was a MotoGP virgin. Yet fresh perspective is exactly what the old guard in any walk of life needs, and the results have been pretty immediate.

Rossi took his 199th premier class podium in a brutal Andalusian GP at Jerez in July, was fifth in the Czech and Austrian GPs, ninth in the Styrian GP (largely a result of Yamaha's lack of engine power) and fourth at the San Marino GP having been in the podium fight all race.

The outbreak of COVID-19 wrecked his plans to evaluate his performances in the opening seven rounds of the season, ultimately forcing him into deciding to stay before he'd even raced. And he admitted after the Spanish GP, when he was struggling in 10th while Quartararo and Vinales ran first and second, that his decision to carry on had made him "worried".

Turning things around from the second Jerez race onwards, he's still removed any lingering doubts - both within himself and to the rest of the world - about his commitment, despite the fact that his haul of 58 points so far this season is actually some 13 less than what he achieved in the first seven races of 2019. So much so that, as he admitted on Friday, his form would have convinced him to carry on with the factory team had 2020 been a 'normal' year where the decision wasn't taken out of his hands.

Rossi is the Iron Maiden, the Ozzy Osbourne, the AC/DC of motorsport. Ageing, but never fading, still going strong and still deserving of the adulation, because he's worked hard to still earn it

"I wasn't able to ride the bike and I'm not able to be strong enough," Rossi said. "So, I change something in team with David [Munoz coming in as crew chief] and everything. So, what I think at the beginning of the season is: if I have the same feeling that I need to do races like [2019], then I need to stop.

"But, in reality the situation is a lot better, I feel good. For sure it's difficult, the level is very high, but we work well and I think that we can be strong. So, yes, these types of results [would] make me continue another year."

So, let's return to the analogy about ageing rock stars, because that's exactly what Rossi is. He's the Iron Maiden, the Ozzy Osbourne, the AC/DC of motorsport. Ageing, but never fading, still going strong and still deserving of the adulation, because he's worked hard to still earn it.