Fiat Yamaha Team's Valentino Rossi (Photo: Yamaha Racing) » More Photos

Ezpeleta: “I’ve known that about Valentino for a long time.”

Reproduced here is the relevant part of the Ezpeleta interview.

Juan Pedro de la Torre : And Valentino says he wants to have a go at racing in Superbike.

Carmelo Ezpeleta: “I think that is great. I’ve known that about Valentino for a long time. I don’t consider World Superbike an enemy in any way….in any way! I am not going to get into a discussion about whether Superbike is more entertaining or not. So they have more overtaking there. OK, they have more overtaking. But there were 112,000 people at Cheste (the location of the Circuit of the Community of Valencia) and they will be delighted to come back next year. (Here Ezpeleta does not need to mention that the crowd at the same track for World Superbike was 40,000, because Spanish readers know this.) This is the greatest championship in history and we are continuing the history of a championship that was, for sure, less entertaining in the past than it is today. Of course it should be more be a lot more entertaining than it is! But we should always remember that this is the championship where all kids who start riding motorcycles when they are little want to be! You take any kid in any country in the world and ask him where he would like to end up racing and he will say “Where Valentino is racing!” And this is the real issue. Not whether there hasn’t been an overtaking on the last lap for so long…. MotoGP is the pinnacle of motorcycle racing. There are other levels of racing like Superbike and I am delighted that they are popular too. For me, if Valentino goes and does a race there the only thing I want is for him to win! Two years ago Bayliss came here and won a MotoGP race. What conclusion am I supposed to take from that? That Bayliss is better than all the MotoGP riders? That all the other riders here are no good? I wouldn’t say that. Because it turns out that they all want to come here and they only leave MotoGP when they no longer have a place here.”