VITÓRIAS, QUEDAS e CARISMA_ como VALENTINO ROSSI ABALOU a MOTOGP no ANO de ESTREIA _ FullGas Podcast

The first victory in MotoGP, an iconic milestone for the career of any rider. But even more so when the figure in question is predestined to become a sport legend. And among the first more classic times, the GP of the Great Britain of 2000 is in highlight, when a young Valentino Rossi, in his first season in the main class, guaranteed the inaugural achievement of his career in a race with mixed conditions and many alternatives. But that season for Valentino was a bit of ups and downs, with his adaptation to the 500cc, which at that time, according to many who went from 250cc to 500cc, were two completely different animals. After mistakes and a very hard start, the Italian used all his talent to finish the year as the biggest highlight in MotoGP, possibly becoming the most influential figure in the history of the world championship. Well, the silver bullets, let's put it this way, of Valentino Rossi's arrival in the main category, the 500cc at the time, MotoGP today, and his first victory are the subject of this video. So, grab your helmet, the sling, tighten your glove and come with me. Very well, before starting the video, don't forget to subscribe here on the channel, don't forget to like this video, don't forget to check if you are subscribed here on the channel, since your subscription and your like help me a lot here. If you like MotoGP, you certainly already know that here on the Full Gas Podcast, we treat MotoGP as it deserves, we talk in depth about all the subjects, so check it out, give me a boost, and also check out being a member of the channel with these people down here. Thank you very much to all of you, members of the channel, who help me a lot and make this possible, the channel being possible, so thank you very much. Very well, Valentino Rossi's arrival at MotoGP, the old 500cc, in 2000, was surrounded by a lot of expectation, even before he signed the first contract. In a dominating season in the 250cc, with Aprilia in 1999, which gave him the title of the intermediate category, Valentino had three offers to go up to the 500cc a year later. One was from Aprilia itself, and the other two were from Honda. One was from the factory itself, and the other was both curious. To reach the main category in a team led by none other than Michael Doohan. In 2020, in a live with Chris Vermeulen, the Australian Penta Champion revealed that in 2000 he was planning to set up his own team in the main class with Honda's factory motorcycles. Despite a higher salary promise at Aprilia, the motorcycle, the twin-cylinder RSW2500, followed the concept of the manufacturer's 250 project, with considerably less power than Japanese brand motorcycles. In this way, aiming to be competitive, Rossi was inclined to accept Doohan's proposal, which negotiated with Shell an agreement of sponsorship to have official motorcycles outside of Repsol Honda. But in the end, two things did not go as planned. With his strong accident in early 1999 and the extension of the injuries, Doohan decided to end his career. In the second half of 1999, his agreement with Shell ended up not being confirmed, which made the project unfeasible. So this opened up space for Valentino Rossi to debut at MotoGP in 2000, exactly with a direct contract with Honda. But this agreement had a reservation, so to speak. Although he has shown great things in the 125 and 250, being champion in both categories, Honda kind of wanted to test him. So he was not allocated to Repsol Honda, which had four pilots from 1996 until Doohan's injury and had three pilots for the 2000 season. The champion Alex Riviere, the also Spanish Seth Chibernal and the Japanese Tadayuki Okada. Rossi was placed in a separate team, but despite being a satellite team, it was a great team. Rossi inherited the entire personal team with which Doohan was penta-champion between 1994 and 1998, captained by the also Australian Jeremy Burgess. So Rossi had motorcycles and factory support, but in a team in which he was the only pilot. This team was named after its sponsor, the Italian brewery Nastro Azzurro. And its yellow and black paint, symbolizing the sun and the moon, its brands registered throughout its entire career, became quickly iconic. The 2000 season started on the Velcom circuit in South Africa, and on the occasion that Adorna launched the classic MotoGP logo, Valentino Rossi made his presence felt quickly. He became the leader of Saturday's classification with five minutes to go, but fell to fifth in the grid. In the race, the 46 showed confidence. Despite falling to 13th in the first lap of the race, he made a faster lap of the race and was already sixth in lap 12, when he lost the lead and fell, leaving the race. In 2018, at the Qatar's post-GP team, Rossi remembered the debut. I have good memories, he said. I started badly, but I did the fastest lap and was getting to the front group. And then I asked myself, but why are they going so slow? Soon after, I fell. At that moment, I understood that maybe they were in the right rhythm and I was being faster than I should. Anyway, he started everyone off, always spirited, the 46. But he was still the target of a complaint from the winner of that race, the Australian Gary McCoy, who recovered with Valentino after the start and accused the Italian of throwing him off the track a few times. In Malaysia, the second stage, the first scare. Rossi went from seventh in the grid to second in lap 4. In the opening of lap 5, he suffered his first big highside in turn 1, an accident that left him in pain, although without a serious injury. In pain and without confidence, Rossi went to Suzuka, a mega technical track, and did one of his worst races on the MotoGP. He was 2 seconds behind the pole position in 13th and arrived in 11th, scoring his first points on the MotoGP, but absolutely unnoticed in the race. Rossi's engineer, Burgess, remembers that the first three races scared Valentino. According to him, the 2000 Honda engine, chosen by the preseason champion Alex Grivier, was nervous and sensitive in the middle of the curves, which made it difficult for the cornering speed and would make the NSR500 be treacherous with its drivers. Something that compromised Rossi's results at the beginning of the year. But when the World Cup arrived in Europe, Valentino zeroed the doubts and won the one that was his first of 199 podiums in the main class of the MotoGP. Leaving second in the grid, he showed calm and skill before arriving in third in a GP marked by an interruption due to the rain. In the aggregate time, he was only 3.5 seconds behind the winner Kenny Roberts Jr. and 2.7 seconds behind the second place, Carlos Checa. Rossi didn't have to wait long to add another trophy to his stand, being in third with his second fastest lap in the French GP, in Le Mans, behind Grivier and Norichiada. In the sixth stage, he would finally race in front of his fans in Italy. And there, he ended up letting his emotion steal him, the one that could be his first big feat. In a dispute in the last laps with his teammates, Loris Capirossi and Max Biaggi, Rossi overtook the 65 with a half lap to the end in the Scarperi curve in Mugello, to throw everything away and fall two curves later, in the Correntale. Even with the accident, he still returned and was placed 12th after Biaggi hit Capirossi in the last lap and fell too. A huge opportunity lost. In Catalonia, another podium, now in the wet, in third. However, the weekend entered the folklore of the myth Valentino Rossi after the Italian famously lost the rainy free practice on Saturday for not waking up on time. Waking up in a hurry at the end of the session, he, scared, went to the box and explained to the team that his team leader in Aprilia, in the 250, used to wake him up, and so he asked Burgess to let him do the same. He swore to his team that the mistake would never happen again. So, ok, right? And after a 6th place in the Netherlands, came the big moment. July 9th, 2000, the great prize of Great Britain, Donington Park. And on that gray and rainy day, a beautiful and victorious story began to be told in exactly 89 GPs. Starting in 4th, Rossi skated a lot on the exit and fell to 13th on the first lap. The Italian had started the box presentation lap, which was allowed at the time. He selected intermediate tires to race, which were not the best for the beginning of the race, with a lot of water on the track. But, without rain and with the trail forming, Rossi was growing little by little. He was already 3rd in half of the race, and in the last 12 laps, he got involved in a tough fight with Kenny Roberts Jr. in his Suzuki, and Jeremy McWilliams in Aprilia. The three of them clashed on a treacherous track that was getting drier and drier. It was then that Rossi managed his pace with mastery, saving his tires for the end of the race and managing to beat McWilliams at the end of the 5 laps. From there, he managed to open up little by little and guaranteed the first victory ahead of Roberts and the North Irishman. The biggest achievement so far in his career. Two curiosities about this race, this was Aprilia's last podium until the 2021 GP in Great Britain, exactly with Alex Spargaró. And in this GP, we had an illustrious presence in Aprilia's engineering on the pit wall. Simply a young Didi of the line. Long before he became world champion of Superbike, and long before he revolutionized the MotoGP and became the A.J. Newey of the two wheels. But Rossi could have amended a second victory in a row in the next race, in Germany. And it would be with a lot of emotion. In 6th place on the grid, he fell to 16th place after a terrible start. He climbed to 10th place in lap 6 and 6th in lap 10. Until he reached 3rd place in lap 23 and 1st in lap 27 of 30. However, the Italian lost a duel with the Brazilian Alexandre Barros in the last two laps, and had to settle for 2nd place after attacking Barros in the wrong overtaking point in the last lap. The detail is that Sachsenring had a slightly different layout at that time, which was much more difficult to overtake. That's exactly why this Rossi race attracted so much attention at the time. But because of this track being so jammed, this GP was on average slower than the 250cc race, which made Sachsenring change the layout to 2001, the layout we know today. The story happens here, the video will appear up here. Rossi followed in a sequence of 4 consecutive podiums, including a second in the Czech Republic and another third, with his third fastest lap of the year in Portugal. Rossi arrived in Valencia, 13th stage, already in the vice-leadership of the World Cup, with 46 points of disadvantage for the leader, Robert Junior. And feeling the good omen for the number and with another 100 points at stake, Rossi felt the possibility of being champion in his first year of MotoGP. But of course, he couldn't even think of getting behind Robert Junior again. And in that GP, he was aggressive to ensure that. So aggressive in the attack that he even saved a crash with his elbow and knee at a time when this was the purest rarity while hunting Kenny Roberts. Rossi would still recover from the mistake to pass the American in second place at the end of the race. But, like Mugello, Rossi made a mistake right after, exactly five turns after the overtaking and saw his chance of title practically ending there. Seeking a miracle, he came to Brazil and, after a hard duel with the driver of the house, Alexandre Barros and Gary McCoy, earned his second victory in his career in Jacarepaguá. But he saw Robert Junior doing just what he needed. A sixth place, and thus, mathematically guaranteeing the title with two races in advance. But Rossi still remembers this race in Brazil as a turning point in his career in terms of driving style. After he basically fell twice in the Valencia race. Most of his crashes in the first year were exactly escaping from the front and, in Rio de Janeiro, he implemented this new style exactly to avoid it. And, in addition, the maturity demonstrated by Valentino made him heard in the 2001 motorcycle project, the last of the 500cc era, which had its first prototype tested back in 2000. The new project aimed to cure a serious traction problem that the NSR500 had that year, and that Rossi was the first to report after being third in France, when he rode in the last laps behind Noriki Abe in Soi Amarra. Rossi noted that the Japanese motorcycle skidded much less than his in the revs. In this way, in addition to changing the power delivery in the middle of the curves, the Honda for 2001 allocated its highest engine and more to the back of its chassis, which improved the grip and stability of the motorcycle. But 2000 ended with two stages in the East, the first of which was the Pacific GP, in Motegno. There, Valentino fought for second place until the last lap with rival Max Biaggi, but beating his compatriot with a maneuver at the end of the straight. However, Max's revenge came in a crazy race that closed the season, in Australia. The Roman emperor won the race, his second victory of the year, ahead of Capirossi and Rossi, who also won two in third place. But even so, Valentino finished 2000 as runner-up, to 49 points from champion Roberts and with 39 points ahead for third place, Biaggi. However, Valentino closed the year with more podiums than Roberts, 10 against 9, and more points in the second half of the year, 142 against 133, signing after a year of learning as the biggest favorite for the title of the following season, in 2000. This favoritism was confirmed the following year, with Valentino Rossi getting his first world title in the main class, with 106 points of advantage for Max Biaggi, a story I already told here on the channel, a long time ago, right at the beginning of the channel, the link will appear up here. But the curiosity is that Rossi, who always had his Achilles heel in classifications, did not score any podium. He would leave for the first time in the position of honor in MotoGP, only in the South African GP in 2001. But despite not having a podium, he finished the season with 5 faster laps in 16 races, that is, he had a good pace for most of the year. Anyway, that's why the 2000 season marks the beginning, the birth of the myth Valentino Rossi, as we know it. And did you see this season? Do you remember the beginning of Rossi in MotoGP? What is your first memory of Rossi in MotoGP? Anyway, let's talk here in the comments, I'm waiting for you. This video ends here, thank you very much if you got here, consider liking, consider subscribing to the channel, consider being a member for more content like this. And that's it, see you next time, a hug, thanks!