MotoGP 2020: Valentino Rossi’s worst season ever in Grand Prix racing

Valentino Rossi currently is having the worst season he has ever had in Grand Prix Racing.

Before we start, we want to emphasise that this is not an article hating on Rossi, nor is it somewhere we are going to tear him to shreds, instead, we are looking at the facts and data which is given to us about 2020.

After a total of 10 rounds, Valentino Rossi sits in P14 in the standings with 4 x DNF’s to his name, including 3 in a row at Misano, Catalunya and Le Mans, he also had 3 DNF’s in a row in 2019, aside from these 2 seasons, he has never in his career had 3 DNF’s in a row.

In actual fact, Rossi is not known to be a crasher, in the 2003, 2008, 2010, 2015 and 2018 seasons, he did not score a single DNF, even in the Ducati days, he had 3 x DNF’s in 2011, not all of them being his fault if you remember the Valencia 2011 smash-up and just 1 DNF in 2012 on the Ducati, of course there were plenty of practice crashes, but it was rare for Rossi to crash when it counted.

We did the maths for you and in his 24 seasons raced in Grand Prix Racing across the 125cc, 250cc, 500cc and MotoGP classes, Rossi averages just 1.88 DNF’s a season which is a staggering record, especially given how long his career has been, he has a total of 47 DNF’s in 24 seasons with 8 of those in 2019 and 2020.

Due to a positive COVID-19 test, Rossi has been forced to miss the 2 races at Aragon, adding to his list of 0 scores, taking the tally to 6 in 2020 so far.

He also has scored his worst result of the season of P9 in Styria, the last time he finished worse than P9 was Valencia 2018 with P13, scoring a multitude of P8’s in 2019.

There are positives to take from 2020, Rossi scored a podium at Jerez, has been involved in a historic Yamaha 1-2-3-4 in the qualifying at Misano and generally has been a consistent top 5 scorer in 2020 at 41 years old which is outstanding.

It is clear that these 5 zero-point races will play on his mind but knowing The Doctor, this will do nothing but fuel his motivation to come back stronger than before, he’s the fastest 41-year-old in the world and is still showing the young’uns a thing or two in racing.

For 2021 he moves over to the Petronas Yamaha team who are P2 in the MotoGP standings, this change could be what he needs to get back up on his feet and win his first race since Assen 2017.

Featured image – www.motogp.com