From the disappointment of 2006 and 2007, Valentino Rossi came back strong in 2008. The MotoGP World Champion with a record-breaking points total, the Fiat Yamaha rider used the bad experiences of his dry two years to his own advantage this past season, as he himself acknowledges.
“I think that in those two years I learnt to lose, which is an important thing because everybody loses sometimes. The style and the character that you show when you lose is so important for when trying to win another time,” says the Italian on reflection of his most recent MotoGP campaign.
“There are a lot of different keys to my success in 2008. For sure the physical and mental preparation was very important, because I tried to fix one-by-one all the problems around me to arrive at the first race very concentrated on the target,” adds Rossi, who had attempted to address one of said problems with a switch in tyre manufacturers before the season’s start.
“Last year our bike was very slow, it wasn’t just the tyres. I felt a great improvement and a great effort from Yamaha to improve the M1. I felt in my skin that in every test the Japanese worked very strong so I tried to do even better,” he explains.
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