"Marc Márquez was not fighting to win, but to make me lose"

BarcelonaValentino Rossi has once again fiercely criticized Marc Márquez, coinciding with the presentation of his long-awaited autobiography, titled Valentino Rossi, la mia storia, co-written with the specialized journalist Giorgio Terruzzi.

Now that more than ten years have passed since that controversial end to the 2015 MotoGP season, the former Italian rider openly admits that the wound remains wide open and that the passage of time has not erased the pain: "The feeling and my state of mind when I think about it are exactly the same as they were that night in Valencia, and that worries me," confessed Rossi in a promotional interview on the television program Che tempo che fa. In that episode from over a decade ago, he accused Márquez of letting Jorge Lorenzo win in Cheste so that he would be proclaimed world champion. In that race, Rossi started last of all as a result of a penalty he was carrying over from Malaysia following an incident with Márquez, whom he caused to crash with a kick. He made up many positions, but ultimately finished fourth and lost the title to Lorenzo.

Rossi still regrets today that that episode continues to generate deep rage in him. "The only purpose [Márquez] had was not to win, but to make me lose, and in the end he succeeded," he asserts. This chapter at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit, however, is not the only scar that the Valencian track has left on the Italian's sports career. The autobiography also recalls another extremely painful moment experienced on the same stage: October 29, 2006, when he arrived at the last event of the championship with an eight-point lead over Nicky Hayden, he saw the crown slip away after crashing on just the second lap.

These two scars mean that Rossi stopped his winning record at nine World Championships (six in the premier class). Precisely Márquez is in a position to surpass him this season. The rider from Cervera will reach 10 triumphs, one more than Il Dottore in his entire career, if he wins the sprint race on November 21 in Portimao (Portugal). It will not depend on what his rivals in the general standings, Jorge Martín and Marco Bezzechi, do.