Why Rossi's serious approach to car racing in 2024 may create a dilemma

Is Valentino Rossi getting serious about this four-wheel-racing lark? On the face of it, the answer has to be yes. The two-wheel legend will not just be racing in the World Endurance Championship with the WRT BMW squad in the new LMGT3 class this year. He’s doubling up with the Belgian team in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, and has thrown in a smattering of other races, too. Right now he’s scheduled to do 16 in what will be only his third full season of car racing.

It should be expected that a competitor who won seven world titles in MotoGP and a couple more in its smaller capacity categories wants to perform at the highest level in his second career, to be able to match the quickest drivers around him. He admits that doing more racing is part of a plan to achieve that, though he’s also stressed that it was important for him to keep a foot in both camps. There’s his love of the Spa 24 Hours, the centrepiece round of the GTWCE in which he has raced since 2022, to consider.

Racing at the Le Mans 24 Hours was one of the first topics of discussion when WRT boss Vincent Vosse first discussed with Rossi what they might do together. Ticking that box explains the WEC programme in one of the Belgian team’s BMW M4 GT3s together with Maxime Martin and Ahmad Al Harthy. The plan for him to race in WEC was already in place when he piped up and said he wanted to continue doing the GTWCE enduros as well.

But then he realised he wouldn’t be racing at his home circuit of Misano, the track on which he scored his maiden GTWCE win last year. That’s why the Italian fixture, part of the Sprint Cup leg of the series, was added to his schedule. And what about Brands Hatch, a venue he enjoyed immensely on his two outings in 2022 and 2023? That one was chucked in, too.

The sheer amount of racing Rossi will be doing in 2023 is significant for a driver who is still fresh to car racing after calling time on his MotoGP career at the end of 2021. Seat time is everything in motor racing, nowhere more so than in the GT3 arena. The professional drivers whom he aspires to emulate almost live in the machinery in which they earn their crust.

Rossi is clearly still learning. He has to be so soon after making the swap to cars, not withstanding the thousands of miles of testing he did with Ferrari in Formula 1 cars in the 2000s, and that much was clear last year. He clearly made a step forward in 2023 over the course of a season in which he collected his first major trophies in the new discipline, a podium at Brands, a class win in the Road to Le Mans race on the bill of the 24 Hours and then the Misano victory.

Rossi has logged plenty of racing laps already this year, contesting last weekend's Bathurst 12 Hour round of the IGTC

Photo by: BMW AG

That was also significant because the season involved a change of machinery: when WRT jumped ship from long-time partner Audi to BMW for its GT3 campaigns after sealing a deal to represent the Munich marque in the Hypercar division of the WEC, Rossi had to adapt from the R8 with normally-aspirated V10 engine behind him to the M4 with a turbocharged straight-six ahead of him.

Adaptability is one of the core skills of a successful racing driver, particularly in endurance racing. What he learned when making the transition between the two cars will go into the Rossi information bank, something that is going to swell even further this year as he hops between championships and, crucially, different tyres. He’ll be racing on Goodyears in the WEC and Pirellis in the GTWCE.

The WEC and GTWCE are two subtly different disciplines, not least when it comes to the black and round things at each corner. Double-stinting is part of the game in the former, not really in the latter. Ditto fuel saving. The GTWCE grid is made up only of GT3 cars, the WEC is multi-class, even if there will be only one type of prototype out on track with the LMGT3s on the disappearance of LMP2.

If he is ‘too’ quick, he would almost certainly be upgraded for 2025. It could prejudice his continuation in WEC and might precipitate a concentration on the GTWCE

There were times when Rossi was pretty much on the pace of the pros in 2023, others when he fell short. Jumping between championships will not be easy, but in the long run it should help him on his quest to become regarded as one of them.

But Rossi will have to be careful that he doesn’t take too much of a step forward, at least if he wants to keep racing in the WEC with Martin or one of the other established BMW factory drivers among his team-mates. The Italian has been downgraded for 2024 from gold to silver status under the FIA’s system of driver categorisation.

A move that has to be regarded as much more than serendipitous smoothed his way into the WEC and has created what on paper looks like one of the strongest line-ups in class. A line-up in LMGT3, as in GTE Am before it, allows for only one platinum or gold pro and mandates a bronze. The third driver is generally a silver.

Rossi is a BMW works driver, which in theory at least should have precluded a downgrade. Remember when Aston Martin announced that David Pittard was joining its factory roster for 2022, only to have to quickly backpedal? Suddenly the Brit who was coming into the NorthWest AMR WEC GTE Am line-up as the silver was no longer a works driver. The announcement was a mistake, said Aston. Yeah, right!

Rossi has been downgraded to Silver which will allow him to continue racing with fellow BMW works driver Martin in the WEC in 2024

Photo by: BMW Motorsport

You can read the driver categorisation rules any which way, and as Vosse is keen to stress, Vale is a relative rookie in the world of car racing and has also been taking his first proper steps in the discipline past the age of 40. But still, you can imagine what the response would have been when WRT and/or BMW put the suggestion to the FIA or whoever that a silver-rated Rossi would be a sure-fire bet for a WEC seat. The chance to have a living legend on the grid was hardly likely to be spurned.

Rossi’s silver grading and his desire to be regarded as an equal to his peers on BMW’s books don’t sit well together. If he is ‘too’ quick, he would almost certainly be upgraded for 2025. It could prejudice his continuation in WEC and might precipitate a concentration on the GTWCE where he has raced in the Pro class since ’22.

But if he is bang on the pace, why couldn’t he fill the slot in a LMGT3 line-up reserved for a platinum or gold-rated driver? He is a BMW factory driver, after all!

Rossi's line-up in the WEC's LMGT3 class is on paper one of the strongest, and a great many will watch his progress this year with interest

Photo by: BMW Motorsport