Wouldn't surprise me, especially after Mugello.
Mugello is supposed to motivate the Italian riders to dig deep and go for more. Bagnaia was looking to capture that until he crashed out. Morbidelli we won't ever know where he might have placed. Rossi screwed around the whole race in P17. Then somehow managed a P10 at the end.
There's been articles that he's mentioned he will make his decision after the Summer break. Which fine, whatever at this point. Also heard some rumors that his new team may be running Suzuki's next season and he's thinking of sticking around to have a go on a Suzuki.
What we are seeing in my opinion is the lack of wins has really started to wear on him. His last win was 2017 and he's just been struggling to keep his head above water ever since. Which is rather strange because you could argue that from 2014-2018 he clearly was one of the fastest riders out there. In fact it was widely consider that after the chaos of 2015, he was clearly the fastest rider in 2016. Just had some tire and engines issues that forced him to DNF races. From what I remember in 2016, he really had an axe to grind because of 2015. He was all over Marquez in Austin 2016, then the front end washed out. Bike blew up in Mugello 2016, a race where he really looked like the Rossi of old, he was toying with Lorenzo and Marquez.
I'll have to be honest, it was from there on that Rossi seemed to just start to lose a little bit. I think had he gone on to win Mugello in 2016, we would have seen a super dominant Rossi come back to life. You could really see how the wind was taken out of his sails right there on track when the bike blew up. It was almost like he just couldn't believe it and it really got in his head. His wins in Jerez and Catalunya, saw him just punish Lorenzo and Marquez. He really looked imperious in the first half of 2016. He ended up just 50 points from Marquez that year, and you could honestly say that he would have taken the crown, given he had four DNF's to Marquez' one DNF. Clearly in 2016 Marquez only took 5 wins, which in my opinion is the minimum needed for a championship win(excluding Hayden and Mir, both had anomaly years) but in general it takes at least 5 wins. And if you look where Marquez took points off Rossi in 2016, it made it hurt more when Rossi DNF'd. In all four of Rossi's DNF's, Marquez either won or got 2nd. You just can't recover from those numbers. But I can honestly say, that if you gave Rossi wins in Austin and Mugello(both races he looked to be the clear winner until crash or engine failure) he would have been able to absorb at least two DNF's because his consistency for the podium was better than Marquez that year.
From 2018 on, he's just been in decline and it really doesn't look good. It's a bad look for Rossi and he doesn't seem to want to change it.
Last edited by The Black Knight; Mon May 31st, 2021 at 09:27 AM.
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