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kwisatzworld · 12 days

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I think Vale and JB's relationship is quite interesting. In his autobiography, Vale describes the struggle of transferring to Yamaha, at which point his crew was essentially an Australian family centered around JB. If JB didn't go with him to Yamaha, he might not have been able to take anyone else.

During the swirl of transfer rumors, JB continuously hinted, in his unique humorous way, that Vale would follow him wherever he went, like "I can wipe your fairing for you." or "I like Italians, their women, and even tortellini! " Vale saw this as an unspoken understanding between him and JB. However, when he finally openly discussed with his team about going to Yamaha, everyone was shocked. No one believed he would really leave, or maybe they didn't want to believe it.

After that meeting with the team, every time Vale came to the garage, everyone tried to avoid the topic. So Vale had to directly ask JB, and JB's answer was sorry, we can't go with you. At that moment, Vale was really sad, mixed with anger and disappointment. He felt betrayed because he had been demanding Yamaha for JB's sake. JB told him the truth - all the crew hoped he would change his mind so they could avoid making a choice. So Vale realized that his crew didn't have the courage to leave, but without him, they also didn't want to stay with Honda.

Vale finally made the decision the night before race day, at the mountaintop hotel in Motegi. He stood by the window and decided that regardless of whether his crew followed him or not, he would join Yamaha.

After the race, Vale found JB and told him he would go to Yamaha alone, regretting JB and the crew's decision. Vale admitted it was a bit abrupt, but he had nothing else to say because his emotions were still a mix of sadness, disappointment, and anger. At the same time, JB was also annoyed because he couldn't convince Vale to stay. Vale described it as "he realized I had found the courage to leave Honda, but he couldn't."

But in Sepang, Vale won his third championship with Honda. After the race, JB found Vale and said he wanted to talk to Yamaha, which made Vale feel relieved and happy.

I think they haven't had a real conversation since they parted ways. When Vale retired, JB said the last time they talked was in 2019 on Phillip Island, maybe just a casual greeting at the grid or Yamaha's hospitality.

As for Lin Jarvis, their relationship was always strategic. Vale's departure and return were both related to him, and as time went on, this relationship became more turbulent. In fact, I think Vale wasn't satisfied with Jarvis in his last few years at Yamaha, but both sides maintained decency. Brivio was the one who's always standing by Vale's side. He wasn't part of Vale's core friends circle, but he was part of Vale's core working circle. Brivio recruited Vale and left Yamaha with him. He didn't work for Ducati but helped Vale manage his company. Even now, his son Luca Brivio works in Vale's team.

Another important figure in 2015 was Livio Suppo, an Italian who had been "against" Vale his whole life. He once said, "Sometimes I wonder if we've created a monster. He has a lot of energy, and sometimes he feels he can talk nonsense, and people will believe what he says." He also believed that everyone around Vale saw him as a demigod, and they would tell Vale that if things didn't go well, it wasn't his fault.

-tbc

Chad reed on always the entourages creating the drama. I cannot believe that is what caused rosquez downfall but also given the level of Vale's celebrity and the way he carried himself, I can totally believe that it was the entourage (iPad stand I'm looking at you) that brought the end

(about reed's 2020 quotes in this) yeahhh I mean the downfall was caused by a whole bunch of factors, not just any one thing... like all great tragic narratives, it feels inevitable from a global perspective and yet thoroughly preventable in its specifics, with loads of points where you think, 'oh, if things had just gone a little bit differently'... there's this tension in how, in the end, maybe it would've always gone wrong, but a lot had to come together for it to go wrong in quite such a spectacular fashion

reed's definitely correctly identified one of the factors - the entourages, and valentino's entourage specifically. though fwiw, I did cut off the article before reed predicted the marc/fabio rivalry was headed a similar way (this was from 2020, obviously before the arm injury):

for better or for worse, fabio has skipped the villain arc to head straight to the depressed frenchie arc

regardless of whether this rift would have happened or not, the idea that marc would have gotten a new appreciation for the situation valentino found himself in is at least an interesting one. though if anything, the rivalry with fabio would have more closely paralleled valentino's with the other aliens (new talent coming through, but with the previously dominant rider still a regular winner). now is the time marc's learning what it feels like to come back from a prolonged absence from being competitive at the highest level - and of course with a new superstar simultaneously making his debut

so yeah, anyway, tragedy, you can point to all sorts of strains and pressures and tension inherent to professional sport that were exacerbated by the personalities involved and the influence of the media and the passage of time etc etc. but never mind all that, let's get back to entourages! I know you mention everybody's favourite b-list shakespeare villain, but I'm going to basically mostly ignore him because it's well-trodden ground. yeah, it does help to have one guy who's whispering poison into your ear for a prolonged stretch of time before showing up at your motorhome doorstep with a bunch of telemetry and a dream. and yeah, there were people in valentino's entourage definitely encouraging this path to doom. but what I'm also interested in is the flip side - why nobody stopped him

I would like to submit into evidence this passage detailing the thoughts of vale's mechanic alex briggs. now briggs in this excerpt blames two groups for how things went down in 2015:

the yamaha side (specifically the press group) for not talking him down from the ledge before the presser

the crew chief and other assorted italians on the team for being too "yessy" and not standing up to him

let's briefly (for a given value of the word) focus on the first one. if you're a random yamaha pr person and you see the valentino rossi run to a press conference (given he was late) with a bunch of papers in his hands (well, he's not actually holding the papers in those gifs, but presumably somebody's got them), it's probably a tough ask to expect you to hold up the valentino rossi and ask him what exactly he's intending to do with those papers. also, is he really going to back off because you, random yamaha pr person, have asked him to please not accuse the competition of sabotage? added context is that some at yamaha were aware of what valentino thought about the race at phillip island (which we'll get to in a sec), but god knows if the pr people did. unless he confided in anyone on the yamaha side what the plan was, a lot of them would have been blindsided too - which does come back to the problem of how big a deal valentino is and how maybe you're a little more cautious about questioning what he's about to do with those papers than you would be with somebody else. it does feel like perhaps a bit too much to expect for them to have launched some last-minute intervention, or to even know what kind of intervention they could have gone for beyond low-level comedy hijinks to stop him from even getting to that room. why did nobody from yamaha place a banana skin in his path

but we do know that at least some in yamaha were aware of valentino's great big phillip island sabotage theory, because lin jarvis has very helpfully told us as much (from the post-sepang media scrum):

Q: Do you think it was a mistake for Valentino to [provoke?] Marc so much on Thursday with a very personal and hard attack? Jarvis: There are always many different ways of addressing different problems - Valentino chose to do it in that way. Perhaps that is what provoked Marc into being quite aggressive on the track. I really don't know, you need to ask Marc not me about that. Every action has a consequence. That's life. Q: And did you know before that Valentino was going to be so aggressive with Marc in the press conference? Did you know before? Did you discuss with Valentino about this decision or you didn't know until it happened? Jarvis: Personally, I was not aware of that. I was aware of Valentino's opinion of the race in Australia, but I was not aware... but I was not aware that he would - Q: Don't you think because Valentino at the end of the day is an employee of Yamaha he should discuss before with you about such an important decision, to attack a rider of another factory in such a heavy way [...]? Jarvis: You can't control every incident, everything that happens and you know, generally we have a very good [...] relation, connection with our riders, we talk to them before about things before, but anyway I think this is something Valentino felt strongly about and it was his decision and that's it.

note the use of the word "personally", which does leave the door open to others within yamaha (outside of valentino's inner circle) knowing what was going to happen. jarvis, unsurprisingly, comes down pretty firmly on the side of 'well what were we supposed to do'. given that jarvis admits he knew valentino's theory and is hardly a stranger to valentino's modus operandi - after all, he was already team boss at the time of another tense press conference in sepang eleven years prior that took place in the wake of valentino accusing a competitor of messing with him - you do have to wonder whether yamaha could not have tried a little harder to stop valentino. but again, accounting for the power of valentino's status and the power of his character, I'm personally unconvinced yamaha could've done much to convince valentino to change his mind

so then: the italians. a little bit of context - briggs started working with crew chief jerry burgess in 1994 and both of them were on mick doohan's team for all of his five 500cc titles. when doohan's injuries forced his retirement, valentino inherited his championship-winning team upon moving up to 500cc. jb was vale's very first crew chief in the premier class, and him as well as briggs have been working with vale since december 1999. understandably, this is a very tightly-knit group. it is one that made the jump to yamaha with valentino - here's just a quick excerpt (also from oxley's valentino rossi: all his races) about briggs' thoughts on that move:

When Valentino decided to defect to Yamaha, he was determined to have his crew go with him. Only one stayed at HRC. "We first got to know about the Yamaha deal in Portugal, I think [September 2003]," Briggs continues. "I wanted to stay with JB, because I hadn't finished learning what I wanted to learn. "I remember a clandestine meeting in the car park at Phillip Island, about salaries and how everything was going to work. It was really exciting. When I very first started working with Honda the whole group was very much a team. Towards the end we felt like it started to become a bit us and them: the engineers and management, then the mechanics and the riders. They'd sort of got too big for their boots - they'd designed this wonderful bike, so it was like it had nothing to do with us. That made it easier to leave.

and also about the move to yamaha, from the 2020 barker biography of valentino:

But with his trusted crew chief Jerry Burgess and most of his other team members from the Honda garage agreeing to defect with him, Rossi had the crew he needed, not only to win but also to enjoy his racing. It was a heartening display of loyalty and something of a risk for all involved. ‘When I announced to the mechanics that I was going with Valentino they said, “I’m coming too,”’ Burgess later explained. ‘Some of those guys were leaving very secure jobs and taking a big gamble.’

the group also survived the move to ducati (obviously a deeply frustrating two years not just for the guy riding the bike) and the move back to yamaha. but then, valencia 2013, valentino announced his decision to fire jb in a press conference organised for the pair of them. his 2013 season had been deeply frustrating - yes, he had gotten a podium in his first race beating both marc and dani, but after that generally speaking he couldn't come close to matching the other aliens when healthy. he was comfortably the fourth best rider that year, scrapping and clawing his way through midfield battles and having to rely on misfortunes befalling the three title contenders to achieve his podiums and his sole victory at assen. he was considering retiring at the end of the 2014 season once his current contract expired, but wanted to try everything he could to see whether he could be competitive again against the world's very best. and so, he made the decision to roll the dice and get himself a new crew chief, the italian silvano galbusera

now I have to say, personally I have a lot of time for this decision (even if it was maybe not... uh, enacted in the most graceful of manners, given how sudden it was). I come from a sports background where a certain ruthlessness in personnel decisions is encouraged and generally praised - if something isn't working, you should have the courage to make a change, even if it's deeply uncomfortable (including on an interpersonal level). also, while it was a sudden departure, it's not like burgess was that keen on sticking around much longer (again from the same oxley book):

Valentino ended his collaboration very suddenly at the end of 2013. Burgess was shocked but not too much, because he already knew that he was coming to the end of his own career. "When it ended for me I'd already been doing it 30-odd years and I'd told Valentino a few weeks earlier that I wasn't going to sign any more multi-year contracts. I was 60 by then, so I'd go year by year. I'd already signed a contract for 2014, but I would've thought if we hadn't had any more success by then that there wasn't much point in continuing. I felt we would win more races but I was more doubtful about championships. "I'd read enough sporting biographies to know that sportsmen change their coaches towards the end of their careers. It can give them a spike in results but it doesn't change the overall story. Looking back, Valentino's career went on longer than I expected. He enjoyed some success but no more championships and that's what you race for. Of course he was in the unique position of being able to get a factory bike until he retired. He was very special and deserved everything he got."

which, look. again, personal bias, but to me it's reasonable to part ways with somebody who doesn't think any more titles are plausible, because at that point it's just somebody who has a very different view on your career than you do and may well not stick around for much longer anyway. also, at the end of the day, jb was wrong! valentino came extremely close to winning another title, and just because he didn't, doesn't change the fact he could have. if it had rained on the 8th of november 2015 in valencia, we might be having a very different conversation. (or if they hadn't changed the bloody qualifying format post-2012.) honestly, if the 2016 and to a lesser extent the 2017 season had gone just a little differently - a working bike in mugello here and an unbroken leg there - he could have been a genuine title threat in two more seasons. in any case, what it does show is that valentino even at the end of 2013 was still as determined as ever, was ready to engage in what was a huge gamble (given how almost all his success had come with the highly decorated jb) on the off chance he might find what it took to win again. this will not have been an easy decision for valentino. here's a write-up of the presser at valencia, that stresses how uncomfortable the occasion was, how surprising a decision it was to jb, but how publicly at least there was a lack of recriminations (which, to be fair, wouldn't be much fun to do in a shared presser):

(you'll note that the phrasing in the presser about athletes attempting to extend their carrers by changing things up is echoed in what he says in that book interview where he adds that it doesn't change the overall story, again suggesting he didn't really believe valentino would be competitive. he also uses the same phrasing in ANOTHER interview that confirms as much, but I think you get the point.) valentino said at the time, "it was a very difficult decision for me because I have a great history with jeremy. he is not just my chief mechanic. he is like part of my family. my father in racing". this is somebody he'd been working with since age 21, somebody who is not only revered within the paddock for his work with several of the sport's greats but is also a man who valentino obviously has a close personal connection to. meeting for the first time when vale snuck into the honda pit to check out the bike he might ride next season, hitting it off immediately, countless rowdy dinners together, parties, jb and another older colleague sitting back when food fights started, watching valentino grow up, working with him throughout all his big manufacturer switches, all his successes and all his failures... as much as anything else, it's evidence of how strong vale's desire to win was, how determined he continued to be, to make this choice at this stage of his career. and jb was open to the idea (at least publicly) that it might end up being a smart call:

the 'dirtiest' part of the whole affair is how it was actually carried out - it's not great form to tell your crew chief the day before you end up doing a press conference together to announce your choice. for whatever it's worth, this is how valentino justified the timeline:

and lastly, which I think is the most key part, is valentino's belief. because at the end of the day, the only reason why he's doing any of this, and the only reason why what was to come was possible at all, is that he himself still thought that he could challenge for another title - as much as that belief had come under strain:

now what this piece also goes on to say is that nobody believes this will work. nobody believes that firing jb will lead to better results. people expect that this is going to lead to his retirement, quite possibly at the end of 2014. it's worth just remembering sometimes how extraordinary valentino's return to the top of the game post-2013 really was, how it went against how we expect a rider's competitive lifecycle to work, went far beyond the longevity exhibited by any top rider before or since - all while going up against riders who are widely believed to be some of the best to ever do it. valentino beat jorge in both 2014 and 2016, and remains one of two people to outscore prime marc marquez over the course of a season. not to engage in too much rossi prop here, but sepang 2015 can't really be understood without all the frustration that led up to it, to this one golden chance, this miracle that everybody had believed to be impossible (sometimes even valentino). this wasn't supposed to be happening. it was happening. and then, so so close to the finish line, valentino could feel it slipping, slipping, slipping away

but of course, we still don't know whether changing crew chiefs is the key factor that made him competitive again. maybe he just needed a bit longer to get back into the swing of things post-ducati disaster. maybe the bikes just started to suit him better. hey, maybe it was that nifty exercise regime he'd engaged in a wee spot of espionage for so that he could pinch it off his teammate. what we can say, however, is that valentino's choice both tells us a lot about his mindset, as well as (to finally bring us back to the actual point of this post) representing a massive shift in his 'entourage'. this is what briggs is referring to in his quote - the italians. the new crew chief. the people who couldn't stand up to valentino. now obviously, as mentioned above briggs had worked with jb for the better part of twenty years and can hardly be considered a neutral party. here were briggs' feelings on the matter (yeah it's from the same oxley book again, I got it new for eighteen quid which is a very generous price, would recommend):

When JB was out at the end of 2013 it was like losing my mechanic dad. I remember being in the garage when we found out about it. Then they arranged a kind of farewell, a kind of hodgepodge farewell. It was terrible, I didn't like any of it. I was just hiding behind one of the bikes in the garage, crying, going, what's going on here? It didn't seem right to me. I think maybe Valentino thought he would get faster again sooner, but I think it took at least a year to get the taste of the Ducati out of his mouth. I think if he'd stayed with JB we would've won the championship in 2015.

which. look. we don't have time to unpack all that. but. the point is that obviously briggs wasn't exactly a massive fan of the change within valentino's team, and his comments about the 2015 season do have to be read with that in mind. as to whether vale really would have done better in 2015 with jb at his side, your guess is as good as mine. all that being said, a part of me wonders how much losing that grounding presence enabled valentino's late-2015 spiral. maybe not in terms of talking valentino out of the great big fluctuating lap times treachery theory - to state the obvious, valentino got himself involved in plenty of drama during jb's time as a crew chief. jb himself occasionally helped add fuel to the fire in those feuds, like his infamous comment about how he would be able to fix the ducati's issues in 80 seconds that casey still brings up every three business days (the comments were poorly phrased but also somewhat taken out of context, in that jb was talking about a specific set-up problem). he's generally been pretty happy to be forthright about valentino's rivals, for instance this about casey:

My feeling at the time was that Casey probably only had one game plan, and having watched Casey over the years, he doesn't have a plan B. If it doesn't go his way from the outset, it's probably one of the weaknesses that he had through the youth that he had, through the lack of experience that he had. That's not a criticism of him per se, he was still only 22 at the time.

(this is about laguna seca 2008 and how he helped valentino win that race, including in plotting out vale's rather ruthless tactics - which casey was of course not exactly a fan of.) or these. uh. harsh comments about dani from spring 2010:

Q: Is that atmosphere or track knowledge? Is it like the Spanish finding something extra at the racetracks in Spain? JB: Well, therein we show the weakness, don't we? If you can get up on that weekend, on the technical racetracks of Spain, why can't you get up on the technical racetracks like Australia, where the Italians do? Lorenzo is a guy who will and does. Stoner has been able to get up on tracks all over the world. Unfortunately, Dani Pedrosa's into his 6th year in MotoGP, and he's won 8 races, Jorge Lorenzo's two months into his 3rd and he's won 6. It's night and day between those two, is the way I see it. Dani's an extremely fast rider, but a shockingly poor racer. Q: Were you surprised at Jerez [2010] when Pedrosa fought back when Lorenzo passed him? JB: When did Dani fight back? With two laps to go, and he didn't even get close enough to try to come back. Dani has never been a fighter in races, he's a lovely kid, don't get me wrong, but you can see that Lorenzo, having Pedrosa in front of him, it was never going to be the way he was going to finish that race. He was going to finish on the ground or he was going to finish in front of Pedrosa. That's the sort of race that we want, we had that with Biaggi and Valentino, and from history with Schwantz and Rainey. All the good riders have always had somebody they have had to put the target on the back of. It was Doohan and Gardner, and Doohan won that battle hands down, and I think Jorge Lorenzo's going to win this battle [with Pedrosa] hands down.

kind of a dick! so his attitude to valentino being valentino has generally been a) well having enemies is good, actually, with an added slice of b) good luck to his enemies :) - see also this quote (from the barker biography) in the context of the gibernau rivalry:

And that made Rossi even more dangerous, as Jerry Burgess pointed out: ‘Valentino is the sort of rider I wouldn’t want to get angry. He can take you apart on the track.’

so yes, jb is also perfectly brutal in his own right, as you presumably have to be to work alongside valentino so closely for so long. he is, however, also somebody valentino has a massive amount of respect for, somebody who helped turn him into a legend and is responsible for a lot of vale's success - not least, of course, in the pivotal move to yamaha. he was replaced by a man of a far far lesser stature in the sport, one who presumably would have been grateful to valentino for the biggest job he was ever going to get. if briggs is right and there was a shift in valentino in 2015, surrounded as he was by italians (derogatory) who could not stand up to him, who allowed valentino to insist on war and peace on the pit boards, to focus more and more on things that had nothing to do with riding... it would be going a little too far to say that valentino was missing an adult in the room given he was, in fact, in his thirties and should have been capable of being that adult. and who knows what jb would have said or thought or done about the great big childhood hero deception theory. but sepang 2015 was the culmination of a lot of things, including a pressure cooker of a season that grew more and more tense and put more and more stress on everyone involved - perhaps for none more so than valentino. maybe, just maybe, if he'd had somebody around him with fifteen years of experience in handling him, who could have just occasionally told him to knock it off, to concentrate on the racing, to keep things simple (always jb's defining philosophy), to maybe not get so wrapped up in the great big spanish collusion theory...

or maybe it wouldn't have mattered! maybe we're getting cause and effect all wrong here; maybe valentino was deliberately fashioning his entourage into one that was only going to give him positive feedback. maybe he would have just stopped listening to jb, maybe the very decision to fire jb makes it clear he was no longer interested in what jb had to say. it's a tragedy, after all! maybe it was always going to go like this. maybe it was always going to end like this

speaking of entourages, marc's manager played a bit of a cameo role in fanning the flames just a little further (article from marca, 26/10/2015):

alzamora obviously will be somebody valentino is familiar with, having raced him in 125cc and also having just coexisted in the paddock over the years. valentino could of course be lying, but idk, why would he? he's already made his case by this point, and what if alzamora were to contradict him? if it's true and this conversation did happen, you do have to say it's a spectacularly unhelpful intervention from alzamora. even if marc was mad at valentino, why the hell are you telling valentino this AFTER sepang 2015? what's the plan here buddy

^ 1999 world champions: alzamora in 125cc, vale in 250cc and alex criville in 500cc. people think motogp lore is complicated but if you know like, five guys, you're set for about twenty years of drama

which does get to the heart of the matter - a lot of these people have big egos and their own agendas and they love to run their mouths. they like talking a big game and getting involved in things they really shouldn't be getting involved in. is reed right that these people in the riders' entourages 'created the drama'? well, no, I think the two men at the centre of this particular tragedy were plenty capable of doing that themselves. nevertheless, you can point to how professional sports (and motogp in particular) forces you to rely heavily on a small group of people to keep you sane at the centre of the storm, and the risks that can emerge when that small group collectively unmoors itself from reality. you can point to the perils of fame, both in making your reliance on your inner circle so unnegotiable as well as in providing you with the status and power and ego to ignore anyone who might wish to change your mind. you can point to specific figures in this story who managed to incite the conflict between the two of them, as well as how the pressure cooker competitive environment they were operating within helped set up the ultimate catastrophe. you can point to how valentino lacked anyone with the power to stop him - both in the direct sense of forcing him to reconsider and the indirect sense of commanding his respect enough to make him see sense. maybe, just like in 2004, valentino had simply been "looking for an excuse" and he was always headed down this path. or maybe if somebody had just held him back a little that year, kept him focused on his riding, maybe if the right person had intervened at the right time...

maybe, maybe, maybe. that's why it's a tragedy

#valentino rossi

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kwisatzworld · 18 days

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https://fb.watch/rmhqbQhu9R/?

Please I want to see your full translation of this video because I don't speak Italian! 😭🥺🙏❤️

you ask and I shall deliver! just letting you this inerview is so insane that I had to go check it wasn't a fake. that's the level we reached here. here's the complete interview and here's the better quality but not complete interview where they cut the worst bits out. If you can watch the interview while you read it because i think their gestures and facial expressions are important to understand what they really mean in certain points of the conversation. If something is not clear, do not hesitate to ask me for clarifications!! :) I know my translations are far from perfect!!

as always. my comments are in between []. enjoy! :)

Name?

V: Valentino

M: Massimiliano

Nickname?

V: Vale

M: Max

Age?

V: 22 years old

M: thirty

Fist time you rode a bike?

V: I was two and a half, I don’t remember which bike it was

M: a cagiva freccia

Are you married?

M&V: no

Tits or ass?

M&V: ass

Academic title?

V: middle school

M: middle school at the moment

How much did you weight at birth?

V: 3,7 kg

M: a little less than 4 kg

Maximum speed ever reached?

M: 318 km/h

V: 320 km/h

Do you dress to the left or to the right?

V: (laughs) it depends

M: I hope always in the middle

Favourite game?

M: football

V: Monopoly

What bones did you break during your career?

V: some, I don’t remember which

M: the shoulder

Do you shave your body?

V: no

M: I did it once to try it

How did you deal with the problem of the military service?

V: since I’ve broken many bones, I couldn’t do it

M: I just served

Did you ever pay a woman?

M: no

V: everybody pays women

Have you ever been passed on the streets by a bike?

V: a lot of times

M: of course

Was it Biaggi?

V: no

Was it Rossi?

M: I don’t remember

Have you ever been with a man?

M&V: no

Is there doping in motorcycling?

M&V: yes

And what do you do with joints?

V: I don’t smoke them

M: I haven’t started to smoke them yet

Natural breasts, but not perfect, or perfect breasts but redone?

V: it’s a... difficult choice

M: natural if it’s possible, and if it’s perfect... better

Your 740? [it’s a module for tax returns for autonomous workers]

M: I haven’t declared it yet

V: Nice

Would you accept an intercession in your favour?

V: yes, yes

M: it never hurts

A proverb?

V: eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth

M: who does it should wait for it [it means that when you do something bad to someone you should also expect something bad happening to you]

The curse word you use more often?

M&V: fuck [the actual word used is cazzo, which means dick, but that has the same function as fuck as an exclamation]

The curse word people say to you more often?

M: envious

V: shit, is what they tell me

A perversion of yours?

V: watching pornos

M: make love to my woman while she has culottes on

Diction test: sopra la panca... [this is an italian tongue twister. It’s translation is: above the bench the goat lives, under the bench the goat dies]

V&M: la capra campa

M: sotto la panca la capra crepa

V: ah, and sotto la panca la capra crepa

Are you faster when you ride or when you make love?

M: surely I’m faster when I ride, because I’m always slow [i presume he means during sex? He might also mean in general]

V: unfortunately, when I make love

What do you think about euthanasia?

V: I don’t know, nothing, I don’t think anything about it

M: next question?

And what about abortion?

V: I think that if someone is not ready to have a child, it’s right the right thing to abort it

M: it can resolve many problems but it’s not an amazing thing to do

Last book you read?

V: Fabio Volo’s book [i’ve done some research and think it should be “esco a fare due passi” because vale doesn’t say any title]

M: “l’alchimista” by Fabio Coela

What does it talk about?

V: the protagonist who smokes a lot of big fat joints (laughs)

M: a lot of beautiful things

Preferred sex position?

V: I like them all

M: always on top

Can you whistle for use?

(they both whistle)

Three adjectives to describe Max Biaggi

M: cute

V: a great champion

M: honest

V: not sincere

M: friendly

V: and I cannot say the third one

Three adjectives to describe Valentino Rossi

M: cute

V: funny

M: honest

V: sincere

M: friendly

V: unreliable

What is globalisation?

V: countries with money become richer, and countries without them become even poorer

M: it’s something for which they demolished half a city, some people died. In my opinion, they could have done it better [i swear i have no idea what he’s talking about]

How many women have you been with at the same time?

V: two maximum

M: always with the same one

How much do you bench press?

V: I don’t bench press. I don’t lift much, anyways

M: 85 kg

Oldest woman you’ve ever been with?

V: 28 years old

M: 35 years old

Youngest?

V: twenty? I don’t remember

M: 18

Your weakness?

V: I’m sleepy

M: I say what I think way too often

A newspaper?

V: la gazzetta dello sport

M: maxime, there are beatiful women on there

A newscast?

V: Striscia la Notizia, if it’s a newscast [it isn’t]

M: tg5

A tv sport program?

V: I don’t know

M: la domenica sportiva

Somebody you admire

V: Ronaldo

M: Biagio Antonacci

An idiot?

V: there’s a lot of them around

M: there’s too many of them, maybe I’m one of them

Favourite song?

V: “Siamo solo noi” by Vasco Rossi

M: the one Biagio Antonacci dedicated to me a year and a half ago, “Il campione” [the champion]

Sing it

V: it’s only us, that go to bed in the early hours of the morning - I'm even making Vasco’s face, eh? - we wake up with a headache

M: the champion- (laughs) it’s too hard

Do you say blasphemies? [“bestemmie” are insults to God and/or saints. Most typical example is calling God a dog or a pig]

V: unfortunately, sometimes I do it, yes, but I understand it’s the wrong thing to do

M: almost never

Are you in favour of organ donations?

V: yes

M: why not

Do you donate blood?

M: yes

V: no, because I’m really scared

Would you take Baggio to the World Cup?

V: 110% yes

M: why not, yes

Last time you cried?

V: I think it was while watching the Gladiator��

M: three years ago. The death of one of my little cousins

Do you speak English?

V: ehh, a bit

M: a bit

Present simple of “to eat” in English

V: (laughs) present...? I don’t even know it in Italian

M: I’m... I’m eating? Eat

V: I eating? I eat? I don’t know. I eating

Who’s the most beautiful woman in the world?

V: Angelina Jolie

M: Sandra Bullock

Do you have any superstitious habits?

M: I always wear the same sock and the same underwear every time i ride. But I wash them

V: I touch my nuts every time they tell me “congratulations”

Have you been molested when you were a kid? [???]

M: no

With how many women have you been with, 10, 100, 1000?

M: around ten

V: more than ten but way way less than 100

With how many women have you been with because you’re famous, 10, 100, 1000?

M: I can’t evaluate it, it helps for sure

V: every single one of them

What is missing from your bike?

V: manoeuvrability

M: some horsepower

What is Max Biaggi missing?

M: some horsepower

V: honesty

What is Valentino Rossi missing?

M: nothing

V: stubbornness

Why are Rossi and Biaggi rivals?

V: because they are two really strong riders competing at the same time

M: they both want the same thing

Why is he angry with you?

V: because without me everything would have been way simple

M: because i think I’m the one who won most out of everyone. He wants to have a record that at the moment is mine

What sound does your bike make?

V: nieunnn

M: whooom

And his?

M: nieunn

V: nieunnn, the same

What do you think when your rival falls from the bike?

V: I’m not happy at all. It happened to me a lot, and it’s not a good feeling

M: it happened to him... let’s hope it doesn’t happen to me

What are your feelings towards him?

V: nothing profound

M: I prefer to direct my feeling towards the people I love

Have you ever seen him naked?

V: (laughs) no

M: I don’t think it would be a great sight

What is the dimension of your penis?

V: it’s been a hot minute since I last measured it, last time it was 16 cm

M: big enough to be okay

Who’s longer?

V: we should have to measure them

M: maybe you should try to measure them

Okay, we’re done. Greet each other

V: Ciao

B: Hola

#valentino rossi #max biaggi #omg this video!!!#thx for the translation!!!#no one can miss out 😭

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