There is no question who is the biggest star at Mugello – but the weekend began with questions about whether Valentino Rossi would be fit enough to race, after having been hospitalised overnight following a heavy motocross crash on the Thursday after Le Mans.
Even the rider wasn’t sure if he could make it. But by Saturday the answer had come, in trademark emphatic fashion, when the Movistar Yamaha rider was fastest in the crucial first three free practices, bounced back from a crash in the “untimed” fourth, then qualified second fastest for a second race in succession.
His capacity for bouncing back from motocross accidents has been tested in the past. A shoulder injury cost him more than his broken leg in 2010, and lingered on into 2011, his first Ducati season.
It didn’t stop him doing it, because “I enjoy it and I think it is the best training,” he said at Mugello on Thursday, after being ruled fit to ride earlier that day. “I am not so bad. I feel quite good. I feel lucky: with this crash it would be very easy to break something and miss two races.
“It was a bad crash – very, very painful. Especially here, in the stomach. I stayed one night in hospital – it was difficult to breath. Then for two days at home it was very painful, and I was negative about the race. But for a couple of days I felt better. Yesterday I rode my R6 and I felt good – I could move on the bike without a lot of pain.”
The injury came in a bad landing from a jump. “I was about a metre out of the track, and it was soft, so the bike just stopped. I went in front, with the handlebar in my stomach and also a big hit on the ground.”
The first day of practice had been hard, and he took painkillers for the afternoon session. “It was difficult to make one long run … but today is only Friday,” he concluded.
Other riders canvassed on their views on motocross training echoed his feeling – that it is an important tool both for reflexes and also general and especially upper-body fitness and endurance. But can be dangerous.
“I don’t think you it is enough if you stay home and train in the gym,” said Dovizioso. “Unfortunately we can’t train on our [MotoGP] bikes.” (Because of restricted testing.) “You have to take a risk.”
Dani Pedrosa said: “My first bike was motocross, and I like it a lot.” But he had managed to find a track without jumps to cut the danger.
Marc Marquez said, perhaps unintentionally, in the wake of Nicky Hayden’s death: “Even when you ride a bicycle you can crash. But on the sofa, sure it will be easy and good, but you can’t improve.” He would continue to ride motocross. “If something bad is going to happen, then it will happen.”
Rossi, Italian MotoGP 2017