Starting all over again. This will what Riccardo Rossi will be doing in 2026, when he kickstarts his career again in World Supersport after seven seasons in Moto3. A seven-year period of ups and downs in which the 23-year-old Ligurian has never been able to materialize that speed that allowed him to burn the bridges as a kid and that he is sure to be able to express riding the Ducati V2 of the Renzi Corse team, with which he will face the new adventure that awaits him among the production-derived racing series. It's a chapter that clearly remains all to be written, with a big desire to prove his worth and to leave behind, without any regrets, everything that could have been in Moto3 and sinply did not happen. Not least because of the departure of the PrüstelGP team at the end of 2023 and the injury that has affected him in this his last season and a half in the category.
"I have resumed training in motocross and trials. I'm still very focused on the knee, however, it's already better, " Riccardo told us on the eve of the holiday season. "It was a 'menial' injury, because after I got hurt, in 2024, I continued racing. My idea was not to operate on the cruciate ligament. But the knee was in pain and hurt when I strained it in training or competition, so I decided to have surgery at the end of the year, looking forward to 2025. For a recovery done right you need 6 or 7 months, but I had to accelerate the time to be ready for the first tests at the end of January, and toward the end of the year I was missing that part of physiotherapy and recovery that I hadn't done. So I decided to stop a bit earlier, to better prepare for next season. Ending like that is never good, especially if you change everything the following year, but it didn't make much sense to keep competing while feeling pain. I also talked about it with Mirko Cecchini, the Snipers team manager, and we all agreed. It was the best thing for everyone."
In what spirit do you look forward to this new chapter in Supersport?
"I start the season with a lot of desire to relaunch my career. In Moto3 the potential was there, but I always had many ups and many downs. That's kind of the disappointment, because I definitely had the speed, but I lacked knowing how to manage it all year. Supersport will be a good opportunity for a restart. Also because the bike will be bigger and my weight will count for less. In the last few years in Moto3 I was starting to struggle with my stature. Now all these baby riders are coming in, small and weighing very little, giving you a three- or four-tenths gap on the straight, which you then struggle to close."
What has kept you from being more consistent?
"It's very complicated. My experience in Moto3 was improving until I was faced with the choice of staying for a third year with Simoncelli's team or signing, as I did, with CFMoto and PrüstelGP. When I got to the last race of 2023 in Valencia, I heard from Artigas that the team was going to close and I found myself from having an official contract to being without a team. When you get into the World Championship, you improve year by year, and you get to sign an official contract, you are stoked. And when that door suddenly closed, I struggled, because that would have been the decisive year for me: the one in which to put it all together, reap what had been sown, and see what we really had in hand. It was a shame, and I got a bit demoralized when it ended the way it did. It's hard to restart when you lose what you had worked for, and even though I was lucky enough to be able to race with CIP afterwards, I was hurt. This is kind of what happened in 2024. This year, however, I was off to a good start, but the problem was that I rushed my knee. When you overload the physique, the bill, eventually, always comes."
What do you have left from these seven years in Moto3?
"I definitely learned a lot. I could have undoubtedly achieved more, but if there is one thing I have learned it is that you should never think about what could have been. What is done is done, and what I take with me is a lot of experience and the many lessons I have learned. What this experience has taught me is that life is not easy and that we all make mistakes. But the difference, in my opinion, lies in who recovers better and faster. It's not that to be at the top you can't make mistakes or you can't have fun, but you have to know where you are and that you have to make compromises. Next year I will try not to repeat everything I did wrong."
Among the people from whom I think you learned a lot is Paolo Simoncelli. He always believed in you so much and it was with him that you had your best seasons in the World Championship.
"I started with him when I was little. We raced together in the CIV PreMoto3 125 2T in 2015 and as a child I was the same as his son: curly and with lots of hair. I've always had a very strong and very nice bond with Paolo, we love each other very much, and in those two years with him in Moto3 I really enjoyed and grew a lot. I feel I took a good step forward together with him, Marco Grana and the whole team and improved a lot. Paolo believed in me a lot. In fact, he was pissed as hell when I told him I wasn't staying for the third year - he told me to fuck off ten times! (Laughs, ed.). Sometimes life leads you to make choices that mark you, both good and bad. When I had told him that I had been presented with an opportunity to go to an official team, which was already paying me a little bit, he had said, 'You'll see it's not the right choice.' Then the team closed and he added, 'See, I told you so!' (Laughs). Of course, I would never have signed with them if I had known the team was going to close. It was all bad luck."
Fausto Gresini also played a very important role in your journey.
"Absolutely, but what I had with Fausto was a different relationship than with Paolo. He and my father were best friends, and my family and I always went to his house. He was the one who taught me how to fish, and on weekends I was always at his house, because I would go through Imola to go from Genoa to Riccione to train. I would stop at his place to eat and sleep every Friday night and sometimes I would go back there on Sunday for lunch as well."
It was Fausto himself who brought you into the World Championship in 2019. Were you ready for what lay ahead?
"Fausto pushed to get me up there, but I didn't want to go that fast. The problem was that I had done a private test with him in 2016 and had gone really fast. But I was small and at that age you ride by instinct, you don't think about things. That year I finished 2nd in the Italian PreMoto3 Championship, and after that test, he told me, 'Go to CEV, do two years, and then we go to the World Championship.' In the first year in CEV I really struggled with the KTM of the Laglisse team, because it was very far from the Honda of the test with Fausto. The next year went much better and it would take a third to regroup before we went to the World Championship. Fausto, however, presented me with that opportunity and I couldn't not try. Maybe it was a little premature and it would have been better to do one more year in CEV. But ifs and buts are pointless and it was still a wonderful experience."
Was it difficult to handle all the pressure that was on you?
"Let's say you put the pressure on yourself or you don't put it on yourself, but that's not a question for me, because I don't handle pressure very well. I start without pressure, but I put it on as soon as the result comes and then I struggle to handle it. In 2023 there was more pressure on me after the first place with record I got in the tests. Coming into the first race I expected to be first and I remember being pissed as hell after the first practice sessions because I was sixth or seventh and I also crashed in FP2. That's where you have to know how to handle the pressure. You have to be able to do well, because people expect it, whereas I really struggled. This year no one expected me to do well in Qatar, given the condition of my leg, and I did well. But after Qatar we all expected a good result and I struggled. The pressure comes when you go well and expect to make the result and that's when you then make a mistake."
In Supersport you'll be able to start a bit more relaxed, since everything will be new to you.
"Moto3 is a completely different bike from all the other bikes in the world; Moto2 and Supersport are quite similar and even between Moto2 and MotoGP there is more similarity than between Moto2 and Moto3. So, coming from seven years in Moto3, I'm not coming to Supersport to win. But the goal, of course, is to do well. The team and the bike are going well, and I also consider myself a strong rider. So I will have to learn, but also giving some gas."
How come you decided to change your path completely, instead of focusing on European Moto2 that you had tried at Aragon?
"At Aragon I only did practice because they offered me a Moto2 and I was interested in trying it, since I had always raced in Moto3. From there we moved looking towards Moto2 and Supersport and this was definitely the best option for me: it is a good team and I have a very good relationship with Stefano Renzi, who is a very good person. I liked him as soon as I met him, as well as the project. Then the bike is very competitive. It is very beautiful, very big and very fast. It is also very different and heavy, as I will go from a bike that weighed 80kg to one that weighs 180kg. The best way was to start here, see what the category is like and what we can do. I am convinced that we can do very well together."