More about Valentino Rossi just for you Adrian >>>
a little bit about him or just mention his name in Italy & you'll see he's quite a legend in those parts.
Valentino Rossi (born February 16, 1979 in Urbino, Italy) is an Italian professional motorcycle racer and multiple MotoGP World Champion. He is widely considered one of the best motorcycle racers of all time. Following his father, Graziano Rossi, 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, again with Aprilia, and won the 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 MotoGP World Championship after leaving Honda to join Yamaha.
He is the reigning World Champion and won his seventh World Championship (5th consecutive) in the 2005 MotoGP series. At the end of the 2005 season, Valentino Rossi held 79 Grand Prix victories which makes him the third winningest rider of the Grand Prix series, third only to legendary rider Giacomo Agostini, who has 122 Grand Prix victories and Angel Nieto.
Rossi has signed a contract with Yamaha to continue racing the premier class through the 2006 season. Rumors abound speculating Rossi will switch from two wheels to four wheels some time in the next few years. These rumors continue to gain momentum following his recent test of the Ferrari Formula One racecar, his second test of the car to date. Times from the test at the private circuit in Fiorano, Italy had Rossi approximately 3 seconds back of Michael Schumacher's outright lap record. Rossi has also expressed a strong passion for rallying, and plans to race a factory Subaru Impreza car in the Rally of Monza in November 2005, he has often spoken of his love for rallying, leading some to speculate a future move to the World Rally Championship rather than Formula One.
As of May 24, 2006, Rossi announced that he would be staying in MotoGP until he felt his work on the motorbike was "finished". Ferrari driver Schumacher said that he felt "saddened" by Rossi's decision, but supported it.
As you can see quite an achivement for a petrol head ;-)
Credit for the info details goes to Wikipedia
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