Het was een rustig raceweekend, maar Valentino Rossi maakte het mij toch nog makkelijk om een paar mooie quotes van hem te vinden. De Italiaan heeft aangekondigd Yamaha voor Ducati in te ruilen. Het hing echter al lange tijd in de lucht.

Many things have changed since that far-off time in 2004, but especially ‘she’, my M1, has changed. At that time she was a poor middle-grid position MotoGP bike, derided by most of the riders and the MotoGP workers. Now, after having helped her to grow and improve, you can see her smiling in her garage, courted and admired, treated as the ‘top of the class’.” – Maar Valentino Rossi heeft een nieuwe vriendin gevonden in Ducati Desmosedici.

Generally you’d want to make such arrangements [teamorders] in a subtle manner. At the end of the straight, a driver breaks a little early into a corner, let the team mate close the gap and overtake. Alright, with the fight for the first place it is harder to make it subtle, but it didn’t have to be so blatant. There is where Massa surprised me.” – En Nelsinho Piquet kan het weten, want hij heeft bijna een jaar lang de valsspelerij van Renault verborgen weten te houden.

A week ago I had no idea I’d be here, much less winning the race, so this just goes to show how things can happen to you in life.” – Alex Ardoin won gisteren de prestigieuze Star Mazda-race op Circuit Trois-Rivières.

It’s interesting, since I’ve never really reached for that popularity side of things; in many ways the people that I grew up admiring in the sport all seemed to be more humble, rather than looking to make a big splash. It’s something that you feel in your inner self that you sure don’t want to take credit for doing things that took so many people to make happen, because everything in this sport is a team effort.” – Dan Gurney, nog altijd veel te bescheiden.

Now the moment has come to look for new challenges; my work here at Yamaha is finished. Unfortunately even the most beautiful love stories finish, but they leave a lot of wonderful memories, like when my M1 and I kissed for the first time on the grass at Welkom, when she looked straight in my eyes and told me ‘I love you!” – Valentino Rossi en Yamaha was met vier wereldtitels inderdaad een liefdesverhaal.