If you're unfamiliar with either MotoGP or Formula One, most people who know them well will tell you that they're comparable series, only one with two wheels, and one with four. And there are definitely comparisons to be drawn. Both series, after all, feature the current crop of the world's best trained and most talented racers, either on two wheels or four, racing prototype vehicles that cost ungodly amounts of money to develop to most of the rest of us.
So back in the day, the idea that Valentino Rossi, the nine-time MotoGP world champion, was testing with Ferrari and considering a possible future that involved Formula One, made a certain strange sort of sense. Not completely, of course; they might both be types of racing, but that's like saying you can switch from mountain bikes to competitive speed skating with little else than a change of gear.
But surely, it was easier to wrap your brain around than a migration to the World Rally Championship, wasn't it? And yet, that's something that Rossi was also considering in the early 2000s. Whether you are or aren't familiar with this particular twist in the tale, here's some video proof from the WRC Rally of Great Britain from 2002.
In fact, the helmet you see him wearing in this clip recently found a new home via an RM Sotheby's auction earlier in 2025. It was signed by Rossi after the event and had previously been owned by a single owner for the past 20-plus years before going up for auction.
While there've been a ton of different Rossi-patterned AGV motorcycle helmet designs available for years now, this one is a bit different. Besides being a race-worn WRC helmet, the fact that it has AGV branding on it is a bit misleading, as it represents Rossi's longtime AGV sponsorship deal rather than the true manufacturer of the helmet shown here, Sparco.
This fascinating piece of racing history fetched a cool €5,280, not counting any additional fees that may also have accrued in the transaction. For those keeping track in the US, that's around $6,149 at the time of writing. While it's certainly not as much as some other historic racing helmets can go for (don't look at Ayrton Senna helmet prices unless you want to have a stroke), it still represents an intriguing glimpse into an alternate timeline where The Doctor slid a different letter in between "W" and "C" for his foray into four wheeled racing.
As you're probably already aware, he's been participating in World Endurance Championship events and racing on four wheels with BMW in recent time. The company even made a super-exclusive BMW M4 CS Edition VR46 available earlier in 2025, which also came with the chance to meet The Doctor himself and enjoy a barbecue at the Rossi Ranch in Tavullia.
Why did Rossi choose the path that he did, and could he perhaps have gone further in WRC if he'd wanted to? All the way back in 2014, DirtFish asked M-Sport commercial director John Steele what he reckoned the Doctor's chances would've been. Steele, for his part, didn't hedge. "If he'd switched to rallying, he would have been world champion. No doubt," he said.
As to the answer to the first question, probably only Rossi knows for sure, in the same way that most people who make career changes have Reasons why they've done things the way that they have. They're all incredibly different types of racing, with incredibly different atmospheres, levels of support, paddock politics, and more. Would it have been fascinating to witness, if that had been the path he'd chosen? Undoubtedly.
