Valentino Rossi beats WRC legend at his own game

Life Cars & Motorcycles
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Well that pretty much confirms it… In 5 million years of human evolution, never before has one person been so perfectly adapted to piloting all manner of vehicles around all manner of race tracks so consistently brilliantly, all while having a hell of time doing it, as Valentino Rossi…

As we all know he has no fewer than 7 World Championship titles in FIM motorcycle Grand Prix racing including 5 back to back Premier class victories in both 500 and MotoGP, on two different makes of bikes, achievments that at the age of 25 already had the motorsports world describing him as “the greatest motorcycle racer of all time”…

In 2004 on his first afternoon ever behind the wheel of an F1 Ferrari he got within 3 seconds of Schumacher’s lap record of Ferrari’s test track at Fiorano, and last year on his 3rd test day with Ferrari he took over a second off his time again…

This year the Italian went one better by driving a full World Rally Championship spec Subaru in the Monza Rally Show and beating WRC legend Colin McCrae at his own game… Despite finishing 2nd in overall time trials to Rinaldo Capello, Rossi finished first in 4 of the 7 stages, to post a final time a mere 5.6 seconds behind Capello with Colin McCrae a distant 3rd almost a minute off the pace :noway: obviously not satisfied with 2nd Rossi went on to defeat Capello in the semi final of the main event, the ‘Master’s Show’ super-special stage and then just to add insult to injury, went on to beat McCrae in the final by some 1.4 seconds… :astonished:

1 CAPELLO-PIROLLO Skoda Fabia WRC 1h21’53.1
2 ROSSI-CASSINA Subaru Impreza WRC 5.6
3 McRAE-PATTERSON Skoda Fabia WRC 48.8

To put this in perspective it would be like Mike Tyson taking the heavy weight boxing crown 5 years running, then taking up football and being selected as Manchester United’s new striker first time out and then getting into athletics in his spare time and running a 9.0 second 100m to beat the Olympic gold medal winner… Gobsmacking doesn’t come close to describing it… Oh and as you’d expect racing is his greatest passion so he has a hell of a time doing it and he makes about

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Not to detract from this amazing feat or anything, but that ‘rally’ event was far from being a normal WRC event. The event used parts of the Monza racetrack and its access roads to create asphalt stages and the only opponents were Skoda WRC entry of McRae and former Le Mans winner Rinaldo Capello. Neither of these drivers are known as tarmac specialists.

But anyway, still an amazing achievement and I wouldn’t mind seeing Subaru hire him after Solberg’s disappointing performance in '05. What’s next, the Tour de France?

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absolutely… the Monza Rally Show is just that, an end of the season show, but it’s still full spec cars, and dirt as well as tar… but the part that makes it so amazing is that because it’s Rossi you almost think “well sure, it’s Rossi, of course…” but you could imagine how well Colin McCrae would do on a MotoGP bike! :laughing:

Actually Rossi isn’t the only GP rider looking at F1 cars… Max “I don’t have a GP ride for 2006” Biaggi tested a Toyota F1 car at Silverstone but there was steely silence on what his lap times looked like… Plus I think it’s a bit late in the game for Max to be looking at cars, notwithstanding the comic relief that would be provided if they both went to F1 and we could watch Rossi destroying Max’s hopes and dreams all over again… :smiley:

whilst we’re on the topic when does the WRC season start this year… I’m still counting the days until MotoGP starts April 10…

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Uh, today… :wink:

clicky

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WRC? first race? today? mwahahahaha… :yay:

Looks like this weekend will be spent trawling the satellite sports channels then!.. Thanks for the heads up, shows what I know huh?.. :wink: