Vincent Vosse, Valentino Rossi’s team boss in GT racing, believes the MotoGP legend would also have excelled in Formula 1 if the Ferrari deal had worked out
Valentino Rossi’s second motorsport career officially began a few days ago with the 3 Hours of Imola, the 2022 season opener of the GT World Challenge in Europe. The nine-time motorbike world champion will drive the complete GTWC season for the Belgian W Racing Team (WRT) this year. It is Rossi’s first full season in motor racing, after more than a quarter of a century in which he has stamped his mark on the World Motorcycle Championship with success and charisma in equal measure.
Rossi’s first outings on four wheels, however, are by no means his GTWC races this year. In the past few years, “The Doctor” had already contested one or two GT races in parallel to his MotoGP career. And Rossi has also been sporadically active in rallying – and successful.
At the Monza Rally, which had been a pure show event for years, he is still the record winner with seven victories. In the World Rally Championship (WRC), the Italian was active three times as a gas starter. And Rossi has also driven a Formula 1 car several times, albeit only in test drives.
In February 2006, Rossi drove the world champion car from the 2004 Formula 1 season, the Ferrari F2004, at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia. Just under five years later he completed another Ferrari test, in this case at Mugello in November 2008 at the wheel of the then current F2008.
And in December 2019, Rossi also tested Lewis Hamilton’s world champion car from the 2017 season, the Mercedes F1 W08, as part of a car swap with Hamilton in Valencia. In return, Hamilton rode Rossi’s Yamaha M1 from the MotoGP World Championship on this occasion.
As for Rossi, the Ferrari crew was so taken with the talent of the prominent test driver right from the first test in the spring of 2006 that there was even talk of a move to Formula 1. In the end, however, Rossi decided to stay in MotoGP by extending his Yamaha contract by several years shortly afterwards. In autumn 2014, Rossi revealed that he had “never regretted” his decision.
Nevertheless: quite a few believe that “The Doctor” would also have achieved top results as a Formula 1 driver. One of them is Vincent Vosse, Rossi’s current team boss at WRT-Audi in the GTWC. “Anyone who has such a great career is special. If he had switched to cars …” that two-wheeled superstar could have had a great career in Formula 1 as well.
“We all know that at a certain stage of his career there was an important decision whether he wanted to go into Formula One or not,” Vosse said, “but he chose motorbikes, which have been his life until now. It was the right decision and he still achieved a lot after that decision. But I’m sure he would have had success in Formula 1 as well, yes. “
