Valentino Rossi discovered speed by competing with everything that had wheels attached on the streets of Tavullia, playing with his friends, joking and always trying to win, with the competitiveness that has always been his trademark. As if in a game, a young Rossi arrived in the world championship in 1996, and he continued to race for the fun of it, taking his friends to races and turning the paddock into a playground for his 'Chihuahua Tribe'.
Just for the fun of it, he kept on winning, he won the titles in 125cc and 250cc, moved up to 500cc and still wanted to keep having fun, joking with his friends and with his rivals. A grudge made him leave Honda, the world's biggest manufacturer, to show that it was the rider and not the bike that was winning, and he joined Yamaha, still winning, still being world champion. Rossi left the championship after Valencia two years ago, after a quarter of a century enjoying racing and leaving a legacy that no one is likely to match.
However, before closing one of the most brilliant and successful chapters in sport history, Rossi planted a seed in the shape of his MotoGP team: the VR46 racing team, the result of the VR46 riders academy from Tavullia, the continuation of the project that started on the streets of the town that saw him grow up.
In its second season, the extraordinary results the team has achieved carry the seal of the most authentic Rossi - the young rider who won titles for fun. Now, through the young riders of the academy, it keeps his legacy more alive than ever.
If Pecco Bagnaia's MotoGP world title or Franco Morbidelli's victories showed the value of the academy, Marco Bezzecchi's win last weekend in Termas confirmed the success of the project started in 2014.
"I couldn't have imagined something like this," Bezzecchi says after taking his maiden MotoGP win in Argentina. "I had all kinds of thoughts in my mind, but never something like this. Honestly, I'm most happy for the team, because without Vale and the academy it would probably have been impossible to achieve this."
"The idea for the academy began in 2013 with some young riders who were going to the gym with Vale. He gave them advice and helped them with some things, nothing serious," explains Uccio Salucci, VR46 team director and Rossi's best friend.
"One day, Franco [Morbidelli] asked me to help him find some overalls, because he couldn't find any brand that would sponsor him, and I helped him," adds the man who was, for 25 years, the #46's shadow in his garage. "And then I wondered if it wouldn't be a good idea to get serious and create an academy. I talked to Vale and he asked me 'Do you want to work on this?' That's how it all started."
The VR46 Riders Academy was born in 2014 and Morbidelli was its first student. Plenty of other young Italian talents followed, some of them very successful, like Bagnaia, and others who proved to be a failure, like Romano Fenati.
More: 10 things we learned from the 2023 MotoGP Argentina Grand Prix
After the academy, the plan grew to set up the VR46 Racing Team, first in Moto3, then in Moto2 and last year with his own squad in the premier class. In less than two years, the Tavullia-based team achieved its greatest success so far: its first victory in MotoGP.
"We always fight very hard, but we are very close friends and we have a great relationship. We don't hold anything inside, we're very open with each other" Franco Morbidelli
The academy's main secret is very simple: to put fun at the centre of everything, without worrying about anything else. The riders work, train, compete with each other, listen to Rossi's advice and challenge each other. There are constant fights and battles, always looking to be faster than the next rider, while a group of trusted professionals take care of everything else: contracts, food, travel, events.
In a recent interview, Luca Marini - academy member, VR46 rider and Rossi's brother - explained how through rivalry, young riders are formed and learn.
"I see Vale in the ranch, where he is one of the strongest after me! Fighting with him is always productive, very interesting. He has something more than the rest of the riders, and when you fight with him you perceive it," he explains. "Always, I'm the fastest of all [at the ranch]. I always ride with Vale, I come out behind, we fight and he always tries to beat me, he always comes up with something and that's very interesting because you can learn a lot, even at his age he has something more than the rest."
Morbidelli explains the secret for the good harmony that exists between the riders and how they grow in the job: "We always fight very hard, but we are very close friends and we have a great relationship with each other. We don't hold anything inside, we're very open with each other. We're not afraid to take a jab at each other or tell someone they've been a jerk. We're a great group and that carries over and how we fight."
Another secret is the professionalisation of the academy and the team, a process that has always maintained a common denominator: placing Rossi's most trusted people in key positions. Rossi's best friend, Uccio, is the 'boss', but next to him the people in charge of the VR46 company are people who have always worked with Rossi. The team manager is Pablo Nieto, son of Angel, Rossi's friend since the Italian entered the world championship and with whom he developed great complicity, both at the circuits and in the summers in Ibiza.
Matteo Flamigni, for many years the telemetry engineer of the #46 at Yamaha and Ducati, is now Bezzecchi's track engineer; David Munoz, Rossi's last chief mechanic, is now Marini's crew chief; coach Idalio Gaviria, who was the VR46 team's coach in Moto3 and from 2019 and until his retirement Rossi's own coach. Even the communication manager, Pol Beltran, whom Rossi discovered in his last active year in RNF, is part of the team and now works with his brother Marini's team.
Finally, and probably most importantly, each and every member of the academy and VR46 has a boundless devotion and loyalty to Rossi, whom they admire and respect to the point of working tirelessly to achieve success. In fact, 80% of the current MotoGP team is made up of a mix of people who have come up from the Moto3 and Moto2 teams, together with personnel with whom Rossi has worked with during his years in the world championship.
An example of the complicity and loyalty that reigns among the academy boys was seen after the Moto3 race at Termas. Andrea Migno, who doesn't have a full-time ride this season and raced as a substitute for the injured Lorenzo Fellon, managed to finish on the podium and to celebrate he was waiting for Bagnaia, Marini, Bezzecchi, Morbidelli, Flamigni, Uccio... a photo Rossi himself uploaded to his social networks.
But, undoubtedly, the image everybody will remember from the weekend is that of Bezzecchi on the podium wearing Argentina's national team shirt, a nod and a tribute to Rossi's triumph in 2015, when at that same track he climbed to the top of the podium wearing the Diego Maradona's shirt while singing 'mama, ho visto Maradona' - the same song his closest friends sang to him in the garage on the day of his retirement in Valencia.
