Rossi vs Marquez, the Fight Continues
The MotoGP 2015 season resulted in controversy, will 2016?
Article by Ben Curwen
They say you should never meet your heroes. Perhaps a good rule for life but apparently a difficult one in the current MotoGP paddock. Valentino Rossi’s career has endured, and despite press speculation during certain periods of his career, he is still absolutely at the cutting edge of the grid. This has presented us with the narrative of a young talented rider by the name of Marc Marquez to not only allegedly admire Rossi as a child, but them come to race him and on many occasions beat him. All fun stuff.
That is until the end of the 2015 season where toys and prams were parted, and the open camaraderie between Rossi and Marquez very much came to an end. Interestingly this story appears to have transcended the motorcycling news channels and was picked up with relish across the global press. If Valentino Rossi wasn’t a household name before, it’s very likely he is now.
By way of recap, the 2015 season was building to an incredible climax with the two factory Yahama riders, namely Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, accruing race points that would mostly likely culminate in a last race decider at Valencia. This was promotor Dorna’s dream situation; until that is the aftermath of the Philip Island race. In this pretty epic four way battle between Rossi, Lorenzo, Marquez and Andreas Iannone, it was Rossi that came off worst resulting his first non podium finish of the year.
Whilst the race was certainly interesting, so were Rossi’s comments that followed; Rossi revealed in the pre-race conference at the following race at Sepang that he believed Marquez was angry with him over ‘a personal matter’ which was possibly related to an incident in Argentina where Marquez crashed. This in Rossi’s opinion had led to Marquez to intentionally ride to impede Rossi and deny him points. Not quite pistols at dawn material but given the incredible popularity that Rossi enjoys, it wasn’t going to be something that would be quickly forgotten either.
The Sepang race is where things got very messy. Seven laps of racing between Rossi and Marquez that I think would best be described as ‘punchy’ appeared to take their toll on Rossi’s sense of chi. At turn 14 he deliberately ran Marquez out to the edge of the track which, whilst not exactly sportsmanlike, was not a huge issue. The bit that really splattered the proverbial fan was that they then touched and Marquez crashed, his brake lever having caught on Rossi’s knee. It’s fair to say that the intention of this part has been hotly debated. Marquez of course accused Rossi of trying to kick him off his bike although no-one including Honda or race direction have been able to show that this was the case. Rossi is a talented ride but his ability to hit another rider’s brake lever with his knee seems a stretch.
Post race the stewards ultimately awarded Rossi a three-point penalty and a back of the grid start for the Valencia finale. Typically these things tend to come down to the result of the incident rather than the intention sadly. Rossi naturally felt aggrieved by this and took it to the Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Lorenzo, despite having nothing to do with the incident, was oddly trying to shoehorn himself into the arbitration, which possibly did little to dissuade those who already thought that Lorenzo and Marquez were colluding in their race tactics.
The final race at Valencia only seemed to strengthen that opinion. Marquez almost appeared to be guarding Lorenzo’s lead and stayed firmly behind throughout the race; a direct contrast to the antics of the previous race where Rossi was his track opponent. The only person he appeared to want to launch a challenge on was Dani Pedrosa who upon catching the duo was rebuffed by hard racing from Marquez. Had Marquez been fighting with Lorenzo the way he had with Rossi it was entirely possible that Pedrosa or even a concerted effort from Rossi might have made the championship outcome very different.
It’s fair to say that no-one benefitted from that season’s end. Lorenzo’s win was pretty heavily tarnished, viewers were denied a spectacular finish to the season and little of the conversations were about racing but more that of politics. The off season might have been a chance for this all to simply blow over but ironically it is small business indicators that demonstrate that the hatched is not buried.
Marquez and Rossi had a merchandising contract through Rossi’s company VR46 Racing Apparel which was due to run for another year. By mutual agreement this has been brought to a premature close. It isn’t just the merchandising business either; Marquez has apparently also decided that he will no longer rent a room in the GP Rooms mobile hotels run by the Nieto family. These hotels offer a convenient if slightly spartan accommodation close to the paddock which was seemingly all Marquez required in favour of being close to his team and the track. The kicker is that that Pablo Nieto is the team manager of the VR46 Sky Moto3 team and this would appear to put him the wrong side of the battle lines and things have become tense between them.
Added to this have been accusations of a ‘Spanish mafia’ in MotoGP with the Spanish owners Dorna favoring their home country riders in the arbitration, and has led to them excusing themselves from that process going forward. In the interests of balance Rossi is infamous for his mind games in the paddock and is not short of controversy in his racing with past feuds with riders such as Sete Gibernau. Perhaps it’s all part of his cunning plan.
Whilst much of this doesn’t sound like it has much to do with proper racing, perhaps it is quite the reverse. One of the great laments of modern racing is ironically the dedication required. Often in the upper echelons of motor racing there is now the perception that gone are the playboys, the wild lifestyles, the infighting and the characters. Diets are careful controlled, training schedules are meticulous and sleeping protocols are maximised. Riders have valuable corporate contracts and are presumably coached carefully to send the right messages. What the last season of MotoGP has appeared to demonstrate in spades is that the riders are certainly not robots. Well… possibly with the exception of ‘Pedrobot’ Pedrosa as some call him…..
They aren’t willing to simply tow the party line and pick up the corporate check, at least the ones that have tenure like Rossi, Lorenzo and Marquez. Of course this could be a cunning ruse to bring intriguing elements back into the sport but this would have been quite some feat to have achieved if so. No, rather it seems that at the core of it all the riders still hugely care about winning, and are more than ready to fight for it both on and off the track. The 2016 season seems set to be quite the battle royale and I for one can’t wait. 
MotoGP kicks off on the weekend of 17th- 20th March with the Commercial Bank Grand Prix of Qatar at the Losail International Circuit.