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It has become quite obvious that time does not heal everything. Ten years later, Valentino Rossi has not changed his mind about what happened in 2015 with Marquez. He went over that story again in detail when he participated on Mig Babol, Andrea Migno's podcast. You can watch the episode above.
The Doctor started off from the beginning of the year: "I knew that the main opponents to win the World Championship were Marquez and Lorenzo. In Qatar, Marc, in the first corner, went straight on: it was a signal, we were starting off well."
The first clash between the two was at Termas de Rio Honda.
"The squabble with Marquez started in Argentina, it all stemmed from there," Rossi continued, "He started with the medium tyre and went away, but I had the hard and was doing well. I had gotten into a tough rhythm and was doing fast laps one after another. When I caught up with him, I was going much faster than him, so passing him was a formality for me. I took his slipstream on the opposite straight and passed him well under braking. Up until then Marc and I had always gotten along well, but in the next right-hand corner he came at me, tried to knock me down even though I was now in front. He did it on purpose because he didn't want to lose. I got back on the line and he crashed, he had given it to me and I had given it back to him. From there our relationship fell apart."
It was demonstrated in the Netherlands.
"He kept pretending to get along with me, kissing my ass. We get to Assen and the two of us have a fantastic race, he doesn't let go of me and at the last 'esse' I knew he was going to try - were Valentino's words - I lifted off really strong, I didn't know if I was going to be able to stay in there, but he came at me one more time and knocked me down. I felt him coming, went straight and won. I had peeled off to the limit, he couldn't make the corner, he came at me and pushed me out: that was it for me. At the parc fermé he was pissed off, he told me, "easy to win like that." I told him that there was nothing I could do, that he had run into me and that he had to be objective."
By now the two champions were like cat and dog, any good opportunity to clash.
"I heard that they were going around in the paddock, especially Alzamora saying, 'we can't win the World Championship anymore, but neither can he.' A lot of people were telling me to watch out for Marc," recalled the Doctor, who also did not like the Phillip Island race, the one that then triggered the invective the week later at Sepang. "In Australia, Marc was so superior, he based his race on me and then won."
And so we get to Malaysia, a GP that began with Valentino's frontal attack on Marquez in front of reporters.
"In Malaysia I laid into him in the press conference, I tried to screw him up, to say in front of everybody what he was doing, so maybe he would let it drop," Rossi explained, "The crux of the matter is that if you are fighting for the World Championship it's fine, but if you have nothing to do with it, you're not even a teammate of either of them, you have to have the respect not to break the balls of the other two. You simply have to do your race, try to win and period. You have to mind your own business."
What happened in the race everyone remembers.
"In Malaysia he damaged me and bothered me the whole race, tried to make me crash three or four times. Then I got very close to him, kind of like in the street when you fight, we touched and I have many doubts about that contact because he never crashes. I didn't want to knock him down. He made me lose the World Championship because then in Valencia they made me start last. After the Sepang race they called me to Race Direction, where Mike Webb, Carmelo Ezpeleta, Marquez and Alzamora were. I didn't understand why Emilio was there, we started to argue. He had his manager, I had Meregalli, who is very quiet in these things, I was alone. In the end Webb said they had decided I would start last in Valencia, it had never happened before, I should have had a ride through in Malaysia at the most. Instead they didn't give me it and they made it up to make me start last in Valencia, they had cut my legs off. When Webb told me, my blood froze, I looked at Marc who raised his head and smiled at Alzamora."
Almost 10 years have passed, but Valentino has not changed his opinion about Marc.
"Marquez is a champion and has always been very aggressive, but in 2015 he crossed the line. So many riders are on the edge of being dirty, but never has any world-class rider battled in a race to make another rider lose, that's what marks the line. Never has anyone been so dirty," he concluded.
