virage du raccordement

From 2000 to 2021, Valentino Rossi ran a total of 372 races* in the premier class (32 in 500cc and 340 in MotoGP). He didn’t cross the finish line on 41 occasions. Let’s study how that happened.

*This accounts only for the races he started that weren’t cancelled (i.e. Sepang 2011 hasn’t been considered here).

per cause

The categories considered in this quick study are the following:

• crash : a fall on his own,
• collision with another rider : a DNF that was caused by a contact with another rider and that wouldn’t have happened if the bikes hadn’t touched,
• mechanical retirement : DNF where the bike was at fault,
• tyre issue retirement : category I had to create for those weird tyre issues he had early in his career.

Note : A situation where Valentino crashed on his own and then took another rider out has been considered as a crash (because the other rider was a collateral damage and the DNF was happening either way).

Repartition of the DNFs causes

More than 3 times out of 5 (nearly 2 out of 3), the cause for Valentino not finishing a race was a crash on his own.

4 of these crashes happened under the rain or on a wet track: Mugello 2001, Assen 2016, Motegi 2017 and Le Mans 2020.

season	weekend	position	at fault	rider he collided with
2005	Japan	P4	yes	Marco Melandri
2011	Japan	P5	no	Jorge Lorenzo
2011	Valencia	between P4 and P8	no	Alvaro Bautista who crashed because of Andrea Dovizioso
2013	Italy	P9	no	Alvaro Bautista
2018	Argentina	P1	no	Marc Marquez
2019	Catalunya	P6	no	Jorge Lorenzo

When it comes to collisions with other riders, Valentino was only at fault once, in Motegi in 2005, taking Marco Melandri out with him.

(This only accounts for collisions where he also DNFed. Was Valentino ever at fault for crashing someone else and staying on his bike? Yes, but not the point here.)

The famous clash with Marc Marquez in Argentina stands on its own as an incident with 4 laps to go in the race. The other 4 collisions-induced DNFs were all first lap incidents. I have indicated (to the best of my abilities) the position Valentino was in when he got hit but for your information, here are the positions he started with for these races : P7 (Motegi 2011), P6 (Valencia 2011), P7 (Mugello 2013) and P4 (Barcelona 2019).

A good reminder that not starting on the front row will always put you more at risk at the start, if you will.

per season

Repartition of DNFs per season

41 DNFs over 22 seasons gives us an average of 1.9 DNF per year. With Valentino’s 372 races, it’s also a DNF every 9.1 races.

A number I personally find impressive is the 4 seasons where Valentino finished every single race he started. This number could have grown to 5 had 2006 not been plagued with mechanical and tyres issues (3 of them in total that season). Besides those, he also had 7 seasons with only one DNF.

Fun fact: for all 7 of his premier class titles, Valentino either finished all races or missed the finish line once or twice that one time (2004). In comparison, Marc Marquez won the 2017 season with 3 DNFs and 2018 with 2. He also never had a 0 DNF MotoGP season so far (I might do a comparative article once I’ve studied more riders, for now you can find Marc’s stats here).

2020 was Valentino’s most complicated season with 5 DNFs in only 12 rounds completed (one DNF every two races and a half on average, in reality he had three in a row in the second part of the season).

Valentino had 4 DNFs in 2016 (still finishing the season P2 in the standings) and 2019 (P7 overall). It comes to show that his Ducati years (3 DNFs in 2011 and one in 2012) were actually not worse than the last Yamaha years in that regard.

per circuit

circuit	number of DNFs
Motegi	5
Mugello	4
Valencia	4
Barcelona	3
Le Mans	3
Assen	3
Misano	2
Sepang	2
Aragon, Phillip Island, Shanghai, COTA, Brno, Sachsenring, Indianapolis, Laguna Seca, Le Mans, Rio, Portimao, Losail, Phakisa, Jerez, Termas de Rio Honda	1

Despite having ridden for Japanese brands throughout most of his career, the place where Valentino has been the most unlucky is Motegi, with a total of 5 DNFs. It still remains a circuit where he won 4 times in his premier class career.

The circuits completing the podium are Mugello (where he still managed to win 7 times in the premier class, 9 times in total) and Valencia (two wins in 2003 and 2004, not exactly a circuit he ever held into his heart or been lucky at).

per position

Second impressive fact to me: Valentino only crashed from the lead twice in his premier class Grand Prix career.

One of them had to happen at his most successful circuit, the one where he got his first win for his second Yamaha stint and his last MotoGP win: I’ve named Assen, in 2016.

The second time was in Sepang, in 2018, with only 4 laps to go.

A mechanical issue made him retire while he was leading the race in Le Mans, in 2006.

Besides that, he’s had a bunch of DNFs when he was chasing the lead from P2, 7 to be exact.