Valentino Rossi leads his Italian MotoGP title rival Max Biaggi in 2001 at Donington Park
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Twenty five years ago Valentino Rossi became the last rider to win the MotoGP crown riding a two-stroke motorcycle.
The two-stroke engine had ruled MotoGP from the mid-1970s because two-strokes fire each turn of the crankshaft, whereas four-strokes fire every two turns. Literally, two bangs for your buck. However, two-strokes create more pollution, so they were legislated off the roads, hence MotoGP’s decision to follow suit and switch from 500cc two-strokes to 990cc four-strokes from 2002.
Rossi’s 2001 success was therefore historic, but it’s most remembered for the title duel he fought with fellow Italian Max Biaggi. This was the first great rivalry of his racing career, which was characterised by feuds with anyone that gave him a hard time: Biaggi, Sete Gibernau, Casey Stoner and Marc Márquez among the list.
Hostilities broke out between Rossi and Biaggi before they were even rivals, when Rossi was a mop-haired teenager making his name in the junior 125cc world championship and Biaggi was on his way to a fourth 250cc title. When Rossi won the 1997 Italian 125 Grand Prix he rode his slowdown lap accompanied by a blow-up doll, the words ‘Claudia Schiffer’ scrawled across its body.
This was poking fun at his older rival, who was rumoured to be having a liaison with British supermodel Naomi Campbell. Soon after, Biaggi accosted the youngster, saying, “Stay quiet, I am number one!”
The two were very different personalities – Biaggi took himself seriously, while Rossi didn’t seem to take anything seriously at all – and they were rival suitors for the affections of Italian fans.
“With the two-stroke you seem to be on edge, risking the unthinkable”
By 2001 they were both factory riders in the premier class, Rossi riding a Honda NSR500, Biaggi a Yamaha YZR500. The championship started at Suzuka in April, where Rossi tried riding around Biaggi’s outside exiting the sweeping final corner. As Rossi drew level, he was elbowed onto the grass. Once he had recovered and passed Biaggi, he took his left hand off the handlebar and gave him the finger.
Rossi won at Suzuka (Honda’s 500th GP victory) and the next two, moving him comfortably ahead in the title chase. Then Biaggi fought back, winning at Le Mans, where Rossi could only manage third. A fortnight later, Rossi crashed out at Mugello. In just two weekends his points advantage had been halved. Next time out at Barcelona, Rossi was on pole and clear favourite, until he bungled the first corner. From 12th after the first lap, he sliced through the pack to take victory from Biaggi.
As the winner, runner-up and their team staff climbed the stairs to the podium anteroom, all hell broke loose. There was jostling, then a brawl, during which Rossi punched Biaggi, who later insisted that only happened after Rossi’s team manager Carlo Fiorani had pinned his hands behind his back.
These are happy days for Aprilia, which leads the MotoGP constructors’ championship for the first time in its history. And there’s no one better to tell its story than team manager Paolo Bonora, who joined Aprilia in 2002 to do pioneering electronics work on the Cube MotoGP bike
“That wasn’t nice, it was unfair,” said Biaggi, who once again fought back, head-butting Fiorani and slapping Rossi.
News of the scuffle reached the post-race conference room, where excited journalists couldn’t help but notice a ruddy mark on Biaggi’s face. “Max, what happened to your face?” “Oh, that? It’s a bug bite.”
“What happened wasn’t very big and it wasn’t important,” Rossi told me during a one-on-one a few weeks later. “It was like being at school: ‘He started it!’ ‘No, he started it!’ Biaggi said I started this f***ing shit but it’s necessary to think about what happened before. I started the race from last position and made a fantastic victory, so why would I want to make all that shit?”
Biaggi won two of the next three races, to close within striking distance as the championship moved towards its climax. At Brno he led again and then he was down, skating across the asphalt. Suddenly, he was all but out of the title fight.
Did Rossi smile when Biaggi fell right in front of him, because that’s what racers are like? “No, I didn’t smile. Biaggi was going so quick, so I had my mind on other things. When he crashed I thought ‘Oh f**k, now it’s necessary to change my plan,’ so it was, ‘What do I do now?’”
Rossi secured the championship a few weeks later, with two races remaining. He was on his way to becoming a global superstar, bigger than MotoGP itself.
When I interviewed Biaggi at the end of 2001 he knew the game was up, that he couldn’t win a war of words with the world’s favourite – and fastest – motorcycle racer.
“My only defence is to say nothing,” he said. “By getting involved I have everything to lose and nothing to gain.”
The first of Rossi’s seven MotoGP crowns was arguably his greatest, because those 500cc two-strokes were evil things, much more treacherous than the big four-strokes he rode to his other six championships. “With the two-stroke you always seem to be on edge, risking the unthinkable,” he said. “But with the four-strokes you know what is going to happen; everything is more foreseeable.”
