The unexpected Rossi/Ducati MotoGP sequel offering redemption

Before you get your keyboards out, yes, Valentino Rossi’s VR46 MotoGP team becoming a Ducati satellite squad in 2022 isn’t an unexpected announcement as all fingers have pointed towards the tie-up for a few weeks now.

What is unexpected is the fact that Valentino Rossi and Ducati are rekindling their relationship at all after the nine-time grand prix world champion’s switch to the Italian marque in 2011 proved to be an unmitigated disaster – a dream partnership that turned into a nightmare and crumbled under the weight of mediocrity that characterised the Desmosedicis of the that period. 

As tensions in the factory Yamaha garage reached critical mass between Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo in 2010, Rossi fled the Japanese marque to take up a sizeable offer from Ducati to replace Honda-bound Casey Stoner for 2011.

Rossi spent most of the year battling a shoulder injury he suffered in 2010 and which was operated on in the winter, but the GP11 – with its unconventional carbonfibre chassis – wasn’t capable of consistent podium challenges and Rossi managed just one rostrum appearance with third at the French Grand Prix.

He ended the year seventh in the standings on 139 points – his worst world championship placement in his entire career to that point. Ducati built a more conventional aluminium frame for 2012, but the aesthetically offensive GP12 wasn’t the major step forward either Rossi or Ducati hoped for. Rossi managed two podiums – second places at a wet Le Mans and a dry Misano – on his way to sixth in the standings as his old foe Lorenzo and former team Yamaha stormed to the title, the Italian still unable to figure out the Ducati’s badly behaved front end.

Valentino Rossi, Ducati Marlboro Team

Photo by: Ducati Corse

Though there was initially no room at the inn, a miserable campaign for Rossi’s replacement Ben Spies in 2012 opened the door for the Italian to ‘return home’ for 2013 to Yamaha’s factory squad, where he remained through to the end of 2020 before his move to Petronas SRT made way for Fabio Quartararo this year. 

Rossi’s two-year stint with Ducati looked like it would remain an anomaly in an otherwise glittering career – though, sadly, his current form on the Yamaha in 2021 is threatening his potential last hurrah in MotoGP with being his worst.

PLUS: The signs that point to Rossi's MotoGP retirement

It seemed inconceivable at the end of 2012 that Rossi and Ducati would ever get back into bed with each other again, but in the near-decade since that is now a reality. 

The biggest issue with Rossi’s stint at Ducati was the fact the marque’s race department didn’t work efficiently with Rossi’s team. Ducati was stuck in its ways with how it thought its bike had to be

Rossi’s long-time desire to bring his VR46 squad into MotoGP will be fulfilled in 2022, and after discussions with Yamaha and Ducati it’s the latter whose bikes will be decked out in the famous bright yellow VR46 logos next year. Ducati will also expand its roster to cover Gresini, returning to eight bikes for the first time since 2018 – no small undertaking for the marque, even if it’s unlikely all eight of its machines will be current-spec full factory weapons. 

Nevertheless, the tie-up between VR46 and Ducati has suddenly inked the pages for an unexpected epilogue to the Rossi story – one in which the dream partnership of Italian legend and legendary Italian machinery could genuinely fulfil the dreams of Italian motorcycle racing fans. 

What’s intriguing about all of it is the fact that any success VR46 and Ducati may have together will be indirectly a result of Rossi’s toil at Ducati back in 2011 and 2012. 

The biggest issue with Rossi’s stint at Ducati was the fact the marque’s race department didn’t work efficiently with Rossi’s team, helmed by famed crew chief Jeremy Burgess – who helped Rossi to all of his premier class title to date, doing the same for five-time 500cc world champion Mick Doohan too. Ducati was stuck in its ways with how it thought its bike had to be – Icarus levels of hubris which only proved to set it further back than it already was when Stoner walked out.

Luca Marini, Esponsorama Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

After this sorry period for the marque, Ducati brought in long-time Aprilia man Gigi Dall’Igna as general manager. Dall’Igna’s as clever as they come in motorsport and recognised the problem: Ducati’s race department didn’t need to work harder, it needed to work smarter. Thus began a steady rebuilding period for Ducati, with Andrea Dovizioso – Rossi’s replacement – spearheading the marque’s return to the front of the field.

By 2016 it was a race winner again, courtesy of its untameable young star Andrea Iannone in Austria. Dovizioso tasted the fruits of his immense labours in a wet Malaysian GP later that year. And in 2017, Dovizioso took six wins as he took Marc Marquez all the way to the wire in the title fight before ultimately missing out by 37 points. Still, second represented the closest Ducati had come to a title since Stoner in 2007.

Dovizioso was runner-up twice more in 2018 and 2019, but slipped further and further away from Marquez in the points while his win count decreased from six in 2017 to four in 2018 and just two in 2019. In 2020, he won once on his way to fourth in the standings as he struggled all year on the new Michelin rear tyre design.

But Dovizioso’s departure at the end of 2020 has done nothing to stunt Ducati’s progress, with its factory-backed runners in Johann Zarco (at Pramac), Jack Miller and Francesco Bagnaia currently 2-3-4 in the 2021 standings and within 27 points of leader Quartararo. 

Bagnaia, of course, came through the VR46 Academy and won the Moto2 title in 2018 with ‘The Doctor’s’ squad. Ducati clearly believes in the future of the VR46 Academy, with Rossi’s half-brother Luca Marini signed directly to the marque in 2021 at the Avintia team on a GP19 (decked out in VR46 colours). The arrival of the VR46 team to MotoGP proper in 2022 is likely to keep Marini in his seat, with current VR46 Moto2 star Marco Bezzecchi likely to become his team-mate - though the Saudi prince involved in Aramco's backing of the team would like Rossi to continue his career with the squad.

So, not only is Rossi producing talents that have the potential to keep Ducati at the front in MotoGP, the misery he endured in 2011 and 2012 has rather poignantly led to them being on machinery amongst the best on the current grid. 

When Rossi does call time on his racing career, his period with Ducati will initially be looked back on in a negative light. But going forward, all the pieces are in place for it to simply be the first part of a bigger story that has the potential end as it was meant to the first time around…

Luca Marini, Esponsorama Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images