Valentino Rossi’s career was not just marked by good moments. One of the most striking situations, by the negative, happened at the 2011 Malaysian GP, when he was directly involved in the fatal accident of his compatriot and friend Marco Simoncelli.
More than six years after the fateful day of October 23, 2011, Il Dottore admitted to Riders magazine that it was not easy to overcome the success, although the end of his career was never an option:
– We were very close. We were together almost every day for at least five or six days a week. Almost always, when we finished training, we would dine at Carlo’s House[Casabianca, trainer]. […]. Being implicated in the accident was something devastating. Personally, it was hard to get over it, but I never thought I’d retire. It saddened me but it was there. Perhaps, if I had been two bikes ahead of him, it would have been a little easier.
Rossi added: ‘But with time everything passes and when I think of Sic I only have positive memories. In the end, it happened like this and there’s nothing you can do. I moved on for love. If not, I would have abandoned it because in a situation like that of the accident you don’t get over it. I was a veteran, I had won a lot of championships, I could say enough. I tried to divide both things: the pain and what I have to do to get over it. So I thought about my career, I wanted to continue, I wanted to go back to Yamaha and win again.’