RIDER MOTO GP

Valentino Rossi

(born February 16, 1979 in Urbino) is an Italian professional motorcycle racer and multiple

Valentino Rossi
Nationality	Italian
Date of birth	February 16, 1979 (1979-02-16) (age 29)
Place of birth	Urbino, Pesaro e Urbino Italy
Website	fanclubvalentinorossi.com
MotoGP Record
Current team	Fiat Yamaha Team
Bike number	46
World Championships	7 - 125cc - 1997 250cc - 1999 500cc - 2001 MotoGP - 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
Race starts	206
Race Wins	95
Podium finishes	147
Pole positions	51
Fastest laps	76
Championship Points	3544
2008 Championship position	1st (287 pts)

MotoGP World Champion. He is one of the most successful motorcycle racers of all time, with 7 Grand Prix World Championships to his name. According to Sports Illustrated, Valentino Rossi is one of the highest earning sports personalities in the world, having earned an estimated $34 million in 2007.

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 250 cc category, again with Aprilia, and won the World Championship in 1999. He won the 500 cc 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.

Valentino Rossi was born in Tavullia, Urbino. Son of Graziano Rossi, a former motorcycle racer, he first began riding at a very young age.

Rossi's first racing love was go-karts. Fuelled by his mother, Stefania's, concern for her son's safety, Graziano purchased a go-kart as substitute for the bike. However, the Rossi family trait of perpetually wanting to go faster prompted a redesign; Graziano replaced the 60cc motor with a 100cc national kart motor for his then 5-year-old son.

Graziano attempted to forge documents in an attempt to get Valentino's junior kart licence one year before he was legally allowed (he was nine at the time), but ultimately failed.

Rossi won the regional kart championship in 1990.After this, he took up minimoto and before the end of 1991, he had won numerous regional races.

Although minimoto was for fun^{[citation needed]}, Rossi continued to race karts and finished fifth at the national kart championships in Parma. Both Valentino and Graziano had started looking at moving into the Italian 100cc series as well as the corresponding European series, which most likely would have pushed him into the direction of Formula 1. However, the high cost of racing karts led to the decision to race minimoto exclusively^{[citation needed]}. Through 1992 and 1993, Valentino continued to learn the ins and outs of minimoto racing.

Rossi soon started to outgrow minimoto; a proper motorcycle was required. In 1993, Rossi acquired a Cagiva Mito 125 cc motorcycle, which was damaged in a first-corner crash no more than a hundred meters out from pit lane^{[citation needed]}. He finished ninth that race weekend.

Although his first season in the Italian Sport Production Championship was varied, he achieved a pole position in the season's final race at Misano, where he would ultimately finish on the podium. By the second year, Rossi had been provided with a factory Mito by Cagiva team manager Claudio Lusuardi and he managed to win the Italian title.

In Rossi's youth one of his heroes was the late former WRC Champion Colin McRae. Rally legend McRae taught Rossi the basics of driving a rally car and the two competed against each other at Monza in 2005, with McRae driving a Skoda Fabia WRC and Rossi a Subaru Impreza WRC, with Rossi winning.