Valentino Rossi recalls his tests with Ferrari and F1 idea that enticed him for some time. Valentino Rossi recalls his tests with Ferrari.

It was 2004. Valentino Rossi and Ferrari were dominating, each in his own sport. And then, initially for entertainment but then seriously, an idea was born: Valentino Rossi in the red car. A sort of dream team combined with the support of the two parties. A partnership that could actually work? We cannot know, but it was certainly possible. Because Valentino Rossi was a kart driver in his early days and in the first tests he amazed the men of Maranello for his speed on track. But, in hindsight, they both have no regrets. Certainly not the Doctor, who recalled those ‘Schumacher’ days when he really thought about giving up MotoGP for a chance to race in Formula 1. But he should have left a sport which he knew, loved an dominated for an uncertain future on four wheels, without any guarantee of success. And he would have given up many triumphant moments in MotoGP.

“I did the first test with Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari at Fiorano in 2004: as a joke, let’s say. In reality I was born as a car driver, as a child my father Graziano made me race with karts because motorcycles – he said – were dangerous. There, too, I was looking for speed. And so when I tried it I got serious and I did well. The people at Ferrari were amazed. Another 5-6 tests and at the end of 2006 there was this great possibility. A dream. However, I would not have immediately become a Ferrari driver: I would have had to do my apprenticeship first, driving in the Formula 1 junior teams. Then it would depend on the results. I thought about it: I wasn’t ready to quit motorcycles yet.” – Valentino Rossi said in a long interview for Il Venerdì, the weekly supplement of La Repubblica newspaper – “But I have no regrets: also because then I won in 2008 and 2009, the Laguna Seca race with Stoner, the overtaking on Lorenzo in Barcelona, ​​a great 2015, twice vice-world champion in 2014 and 2016. Not bad. Since that 2006 I have done like another whole career.” – the Italian professional motorcycle road racer and multiple time MotoGP World Champion concluded.