Franco Morbidelli, revelation about Valentino Rossi

“This past year Valentino Rossi has been close to me, I’ve heard from him often and he was encouraging me.”

Franco Morbidelli looked back on his last forgettable year in MotoGp in an interview with Motosprint, hoping to put it behind him for good: “It was a tough, complicated, difficult, uphill season. But with a positive side, because especially at the end of the season there were improvements that I had been waiting for a while and hoped to see.”

The Italian-Brazilian centaur explained what motivated him: “So many things helped me to keep my motivation high: first and foremost my teammate, Quartararo, who has always managed to bring out the best in the bike by offering truly extraordinary performances. And then the same awareness of what I can give and what I still cannot do with this Yamaha. What I could not give was even clearer to me when I was struggling even more. The rest is taken care of by friends, the people I have by my side, they are all a great help.”

Among those who stood by him during these complicated months was Valentino Rossi: “He helped me by standing by me. I often heard from him during the weekend, he encouraged me when I was doing better. He was a little more down, of course, when I was doing worse, however, he was there for me with his soul.”

On rumors of Yamaha’s contact with Toprak Razgatlioglu: “It was never brought up to me by anyone. Definitely it was the comment and desire of some Yamaha fans, because they did not see performance from me and at the same time they saw it from him in Superbike. It’s an understandable sentiment.”