Valentino Rossi Biography

Valentino Rossi, (born February 16, 1979 in Urbino), is an Italian professional motorcycle racer and multiple MotoGP World Champion. He is one of the most successful motorcycle racers of all time, with nine Grand Prix World Championships to his name – seven of which are in the premier class.

Valentino Rossi

Following his father, Graziano Rossi, Valentino Rossi started racing in Grand Prix in 1996 for Aprilia in the 125cc category and won his first World Championship the following year. From there, he moved up to the 250cc category with Aprilia and won the 250cc World Championship in 1999. He won the 500cc World Championship with Honda in 2001, the MotoGP World Championships (also with Honda) in 2002 and 2003, and continued his streak of back-to-back championships by winning the 2004 and 2005 titles after leaving Honda to join Yamaha, before regaining the title in 2008 and retaining it in 2009. He left Yamaha to join Ducati for the 2011 season.

Valentino Rossi is first in all time 500 cc/MotoGP race wins standings, with 79 victories, and second in all time overall wins standings with 105 race wins (behind Giacomo Agostini with 122).

Valentino Rossi was born in Urbino, and he was still a child when the family moved to Tavullia. Son of Graziano Rossi, a former motorcycle racer, he first began riding at a very young age. Rossi's first racing love was karting. Fuelled by his mother, Stefania's, concern for her son's safety, Graziano purchased a kart as substitute for the bike. However, the Rossi family trait of perpetually wanting to go faster prompted a redesign; Graziano replaced the 60cc motor with a 100cc national kart motor for his then 5-year-old son.

Rossi won the regional kart championship in 1990. After this he took up minimoto and before the end of 1991 had won numerous regional races.

Valentino Rossi

Valentino Rossi continued to race karts and finished fifth at the national kart championships in Parma. Both Valentino and Graziano had started looking at moving into the Italian 100cc series, as well as the corresponding European series, which most likely would have pushed him into the direction of Formula One. However, the high cost of racing karts led to the decision to race minimoto exclusively. Through 1992 and 1993, Valentino continued to learn the ins and outs of minimoto racing.

In 1993, with help from his father, Virginio Ferrari, Claudio Castiglioni and Claudio Lusuardi (who ran the official Cagiva Sport Production team), he rode a Cagiva Mito 125cc motorcycle, which he damaged in a first-corner crash no more than a hundred metres from the pit lane. He finished ninth that race weekend.

Although his first season in the Italian Sport Production Championship was varied, he achieved a pole position in the season's final race at Misano, where he would ultimately finish on the podium. By the second year, Rossi had been provided with a factory Mito by Lusuardi and won the Italian title.

On 15 August 2010, after the Brno race, Valentino Rossi confirmed he would ride for Ducati Corse, signing a two year deal starting in 2011, joining former Honda team-mate Nicky Hayden in the team. He tested the Desmosedici for the first time in Valencia on 9 November 2010, making his first appearance since 1999, on an Italian motorcycle. Rossi underwent surgery on his shoulder which he injured during the 2010 season, in order to be ready for preseason testing in Malaysia. After original progress during the first test, the Ducati failed to meet the team's expectations at the second Malaysian test and left Rossi unsatisfied, having finished over 1.8 seconds behind Casey Stoner's pace-setting Honda.

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