Italian MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi has announced he will retire from professional motorcycle racing at the end of the 2021 season. While he’ll hang up his helmet, he might be back on the track in a car in 2022.
“I decided to stop at the end of the season, so unfortunately this will be my last season as a MotoGP rider. It’s difficult, it’s a very sad moment because it’s difficult to say and to know that next year I will not race with motorcycles. I’ve done this for more or less 30 years, so next year my life will change, the 42-year old Italian pilot said during a press conference held at the Red Bull Ring ahead of the Grand Prix of Styria in Austria.
Rossi has won nine world championships, and Motorcycle News noted he’s the only rider to have won a title in the 125cc, 250cc, and 500cc categories. He has raced with Aprilia, Ducati, Honda and Yamaha motorcycles. “I am a little bit sad not to win the 10th championship, especially because I think I deserve this for my level and for my speed,” he said during the conference, before adding, “I don’t think I can complain about the result of my career.”
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There are nine races left in the 2021 season of MotoGP, so Rossi isn’t done racing on a Yamaha yet. What happens next is up in the air, though he strongly suggested he’ll trade handlebars for a steering wheel in 2022.
“I already said that I love to race with cars, just a little bit less than with a motorcycle. I think I will race with cars from next year. But now, it’s all in the process; it’s not decided yet. I feel that I am a rider or a driver for life. So, I’ll just change from motorcycle to cars,” he noted. While motorcycles are a second nature for him, he’s raced cars before.
In 2020, Rossi was on a team that finished fifth overall and fourth in its class at the Gulf 12 hours in Bahrain. He was one of three drivers taking turns racing in a Ferrari 488 GT3. He competed in three World Rally Championship events in 2002, 2006, and 2008, respectively. First behind the wheel of a Peugeot 206, then in a Subaru Impreza, and finally in a Ford Focus RS. His best result was in 2006, when he placed 11th at the Rally New Zealand.
Rossi also tested for Ferrari’s Formula One team several times between 2004 and 2010, and his pace was stunningly quick for someone with no prior experience, though he later stressed it was “just for fun.” At the time, Fiat Group chairman Luca di Montezemolo said he “would do everything” to have Rossi on the Ferrari team. Nothing suggests we’ll see him go wheel-to-wheel against Lewis Hamilton in 2022, but he’s leaving all options on the table.
“At the moment, I don’t know which cars. I don’t know which races. I’ve said that I want to race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and have a lot of car racing around the world,” he summed up.