Fiat Yamaha Team's Valentino Rossi (Photo: Yamaha Racing)
Last year and earlier this year Valentino Rossi frequently said that he hoped to end his career riding for Yamaha, but when Jorge Lorenzo turned down a reportedly very high offer (Italian sources claimed as much as 18 million dollars for two years) from Ducati Marlboro and, instead, signed on with Yamaha for a one-year extension, Rossi's attitude began to change.
His first reactions were mild. At Indianapolis he even said, unconvincingly, that he thought Lorenzo had done the right thing and that he was glad to have a strong teammate -- that a strong teammate kept both sides of the FIAT Yamaha garage working hard and meant that the Yamaha superiority could be maintained.
But after he crashed out while chasing Lorenzo and went without points at Indy, he apparently had a change of heart. Only a week later at Misano he told journalists that he was annoyed that Yamaha had allowed Lorenzo to take a one-year contract and that they had waited past the usual 'drop dead' date that traditionally has coincided with the Grand Prix of the Czech Republic. Rossi, in his negotiations with Yamaha, was always offered only a two or more year deal and with a firm deadline.
Rossi's annoyance grew last weekend at Estoril, Portugal when he was a distant fourth, due, he said, to having missed the set-up. Prior to that race he told a Dutch journalist that he was not happy with Yamaha’s decision to sign Ben Spies. “I developed this bike and now other riders are taking advantage of my work.”
Rossi has never had a teammate who could beat him frequently and push him consistently over the entire season on virtually identical equipment. Sete Gibernau did defeat Rossi on a few occasions when they both were on Hondas (Rossi on the factory Repsol team and Gibernau on the satellite Telefónica Gresini team, but with factory support).
