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Rivalry was one of the key subjects of the second episode of the DAZN docu-series “Cuatro Tiempos”, in which the four Iberian champions, Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa, Jorge “Aspar” Martinez and Alex Crivillé talked about the battles on the track, which played a major role in their careers. A major component of the World Championship, a strong antagonism between riders is one of those aspects which, in recent years, has faded away in MotoGP, where there is a progressive loss of rivalry between the protagonists of the World Championship, in favour of a more relaxed and friendlier atmosphere than before. A situation that the four champions do not like, all agreeing that "there must be rivalry".
“It makes you better - said Jorge Martinez - Now you can see them shaking hands in the press conference, stopping in the corners at the end of the race to say hello... I get angry when I see it, because that wasn't the case in my day. Somehow you had to stay together on the track, with a more or less good feeling, but now, for me, it's too much". It is easy to understand why Aspar thinks this way, when Alex Crivillè said, laughing, that “Kenny Roberts said that he had a poster of mine in his room and that he hit it with darts at night”.
"It's not that (rivalry) is missing now, it's that I don't understand it, because my concept of competition is perhaps different - added Pedrosa - But you can't even pretend, you can't create a rivalry out of nothing, it has to be something real. In my case and Lorenzo's, I didn't like him and he didn't like me, and the rest is history. If they get along now, there's nothing you can do about it, unless one day something happens that creates a problem”.
Lorenzo: "I was looking for rivalry because having an enemy helped me be stronger"
“We didn't like each other at all. Furthermore, both being Spanish, we wanted to be the best Spaniards in the category - Lorenzo commented recalling the years in 250, the height of his antagonism with the Catalan - I remember that the national press spoke more of 250 than of MotoGP. In 2003, when we passed each other in the paddock, Dani didn't even look at me. We didn't say hello, neither with him nor with Alberto Puig. We went to Malaysia; he won the championship, and I finished third. In a moment of euphoria, we spoke to each other, then Australia arrived, and we never did it again".
“I was looking for rivalry because having an enemy motivated me, it helped me to be stronger on the track - reveals the Majorcan, who counts his rival and teammate Valentino Rossi as among his bitterest opponents, with whom he created one of the most intense rivalries in MotoGP - We didn't have any clashes on the track in 2015, but the rivalry was felt, even if we never fought for a victory or anything else. Sometimes I won, sometimes he won, but the rivalry was in the air until the end. You could realise this from the media, I said something, Valentino replied... from the press it was perceived that we didn't like each other and that we didn't talk to each other".
And the press was one of the means by which the five-time world champion attempted to put pressure on Valentino, asking a Spanish journalist to ask him a specific question at the press conference: "I said to him: 'in the press conference, ask me about the championship, if Valentino would deserve the title if he were champion'. He did and I replied: 'If Valentino won the title, for me it wouldn't be deserved, it would be the result of circumstances' - Jorge recalls - I wanted to put pressure on him to make him feel inferior and to influence him. I also created this rivalry through the press, like Rossi did."
