AGI – Valentino Rossi is the Mick Jagger of the bike, can grow old, slip, repeat, but will always have the pace, presence, thoughts and works of those who, betraying the composure of the role and fidelity to the deception of glory, will keep the euphoria and the lunatic hilarity of the warrior by chance, looking for the comedian after writing the epic. The new book by Marco Ciriello, ‘Valentino Rossi, the kind tyrant’ (160 pages, 16 euros, 66thand2nd publisher) in bookstores from May 27th.
Valentino Rossi is a syncretic expression made of speed, body changes and impossible trajectories. A kind tyrant who has dominated the history of motorcycle racing. A bar guy, lent to popularity, who has brought the human factor, the driver, back to the heart of racing.
Starting off imitating the Japanese, he created a new type of Italian, where the ancient magic of the Etruscans blends with the stubbornness of the samurai of motorcycles, grafting onto the Roman imperial manias. It descends from the silent mechanics of Giovannino Guareschi scattered along the Apennines, poised between the stories of Pier Vittorio Tondelli e Andrea Pazienza.
Between the coast and the track, the beach and the paddock, commitment and fun, it has marked and marks its time. Nine times world champion, over twenty years of duels and overtaking, bitter rivalries and courageous choices, he has now entered a waiting dimension. It has turned into a brand, a stable, an Academy, always maintaining the artisan dimension, genuine, Fellini-style within a Hollywood success. He went through the victory, the defeat, the pain of the death of Marco Simoncelli, pupil, friend, heir.
Now he is alone on the track, an alien: by age, behavior, language and character. He fights with a new generation of drivers, finding himself in front of his updated version, Marc Márquez, and even if he fails to cannibalize them as he once did, he scares them by chasing them, however far from the podium. Runs, runs, runs and this is enough for him, with a smile as a mask of the wickedness that the tyrant must have for the good of the kingdom.
Marco Ciriello (1975) writes documentaries, articles, books. With 66thand2nd he published ‘Maradona is my friend’ (2018).
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