Watch Rossi Take You Back To The Start Of His MotoGP Career

Can you believe it's been 25 years?

03:19

Janaki Jitchotvisut

By: Janaki Jitchotvisut

Apr 4, 2021 at 11:00am ET

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Valentino Rossi’s MotoGP career may have turned 400 races old back in 2019, but the man himself has been in the MotoGP paddock for the past 25 years, as of 2021. Can you believe it? If his MotoGP career was a person living in the U.S., it could rent a car.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, MotoGP handily put together this video. In it, the Doctor takes you back to where it all began, narrating you through some of his earliest 125cc victories. Watch an incredibly young Vale take to the track and immediately start making everyone else take notice. I mean, what else would you do if some new racer showed up and finished in sixth place in their first race?

On track, Vale would of course go on to be a force to be reckoned with. With seven world championships under his belt, it’s clear that he’s a racer’s racer, who eats, sleeps, breathes, and dreams motorcycles. Off the track, the Doctor’s effervescent personality instantly wins new fans, both to #46 and to MotoGP in general. The sport probably couldn’t ask for a better ambassador.

What do you think?

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We’re one race deep into the 2021 MotoGP season, at which the Petronas Yamaha SRT rider finished 12th. What will the remainder of the season hold in store for Rossi? A total of 18 races remain on the calendar for 2021, with two additional races postponed and pending rescheduling as of April 2, 2021. Obviously, while the pandemic and vaccine rollouts continue, the situation remains fluid. Scheduling could change at any time.

In any case, we’ll look forward to seeing how the rest of 2021 plays out on track. We’ll also look forward to seeing what the Doctor does in the future. In so many ways, he’s an indelible presence in the paddock already, and training young racers through his VR46 Academy just further cements his legacy.