Valencia, Nov 03: World Motogp champion Valentino Rossi announces he is quitting Honda.
World champion Valentino Rossi finished a second season of domination of MotoGP with his ninth victory of the year at the Valencia Grand Prix on Sunday (November 2), before announcing that he would be parting company with Honda at the end of the year. It was Rossi's 33rd win in 64 races over four seasons with Honda, but afterwards he said that he would be leaving the Japanese manufacturer, on whose bikes he has won three straight world titles, because he needed a new challenge. He thanked Honda for his four years of success but said: "I make all already with this bike. I win in the normal conditions, win on the dry, win in the wet, win at my favourite track, win at my worst track, like today. So basically we finish our work with this bike." He said fans, reporters and everyone connected with the sport should be very happy because there would be a great fight next season.


Honda HRC european manager Carlo Fiorani told reporters: "Everybody knows that Honda have been in negotiations with Valentino Rossi for much of the season. Honda have done everything in their power to convince him to stay, but in the end the decision was nothing to do with money, sponsorship or any other standard contractual situation. The only area of difficulty is that we cannot offer Valentino the challenge he is looking for and we understand that he should look for that challenge elsewhere."


Rossi would not talk about other teams as he remains contracted to Honda until the end of the year, but afterwards Davide Brivio of Yamaha confirmed he was in negotiations for Rossi's services next year.


Bureau Report