After showing signs of getting back to the top last year, Valentino Rossi has pleasantly surprised even his most ardent fans with a storming first three races.
There was an element of bittersweetness to seeing Valentino Rossi win his second race of the MotoGP season that sees him leading the world championship standings after the first three rounds. It is something that fans of the number one attraction on two-wheels have not seen since the opening round of the 2010 season; Rossi leading the championship standings that is.
Fans of motorsport in general think back to Michael Schumacher’s struggles upon his return to Formula 1 in 2010 with but also to how by 2012 the German legend - who is now in a fight for his life – showed tangible signs of being able to capitalise on the “true potential” of Mercedes that he felt was coming in 2013. It is perhaps a sign of how much harsher the judgements are laid upon drivers in F1 than the relatively more relaxed environs of MotoGP.
The story of the two-wheel double world champion’s return to form has been a far happier tale though.
After his struggles with Ducati in 2011 and 2012 his return to the top with Yamaha was not immediate either as the 2013 season was fought between teammate Jorge Lorenzo and MotoGP’s ‘kid’ sensation Marc Marquez.
Amidst the 2014 Marquez steamroller, Rossi successfully re-asserted his authority at the Yamaha factory team that he left for Ducati at the end of 2010 after feeling the need to have clear number one status over Lorenzo.
The opening races of 2015 have seen the 36-year-old who now has a total of 110 victories across motorcycle grand prix racing classes capitalise on two races where defending double world champion Marquez has faltered. The one race where everything went to plan for the 22-year-old was in Austin where he dominated the grand prix.
But an error of judgement in tyre selection saw Marquez open the door for Rossi who was able to pounce on the Honda rider late in Argentina and send fans around the world into a state of delirium.
The popularity of MotoGP has, of late, has been linked with the fortunes of its flamboyant legend and it is something that surprisingly became apparent in India. Right after the end of the telecast of the MotoGP round late on Sunday and early Monday, the Argentina GP started to trend furiously on microblogging site Twitter, whose ‘trends’ are seen as a way to measure what people are chattering about.
Even as far after the race as late Monday morning the topic of ‘ArgentinaGP’ was trending higher than that of IPL related topics. Cricket does, of course, exist in a sphere far wider than social media but it does get one thinking of the possibilites of a MotoGP round in India.
It’s a topic that is talked about dismissively but given that the Jaypee Group at least tried to bring the World Superbike Championship to the Buddh International Circuit, talk of a MotoGP round in India is a pipe dream worth thinking about. Especially due to the high volumes of the two-wheeler market in the country. If only it was possible to have this conversation about F1 and Schumacher too.
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