My friend since 1993, Paolo Scalera, wrote this editorial: --DFA

No champion, in any sport, can be weighed only by numbers. And then which numbers are we talking about in motorcycle racing? Titles, number of wins, number of poles? It is maybe the other things that strike the imagination and make one love and remember a sportsman. How much he actually won is the least of the factors. One example in our sport? Kevin Schwantz. One title, a good but not massive number of wins, many crashes, yet the #34 is still considered a Legend today.

But this is just an aside because we have found strange the resurgence of hatred spewed again by Valentino Rossi on Marc Marquez taking advantage of (Italian broadcaster) Migno's friendly microphone in his videoblog.

Almost ten years have passed and the animosity has not abated. We can understand that: Vale felt defrauded of a supposed tenth world title, which, however, he cannot say he would have won with certainty because over the course of the season Lorenzo had won more than him, but these are details.

Let's not even get into the diatribe. To say that at Phillip Island Marquez raced against Rossi after he crossed the finish line first ahead of Lorenzo, taking five points away from him, is pure paranoia. He did his own strategy, even though he slowed Vale and Iannone, who, incidentally, then beat his friend Valentino in the sprint. A rider is free to race the way he wants to achieve his result. And Vale knows this very well, because on a thousand occasions he did his own strategy that was not to put his head in the fairing and go as fast as possible. One example: against Casey Stoner at Laguna Seca. The only way to beat him was to slow him down and make him rattled: he succeeded.

So back to us: at Sepang. There Marquez slowed Rossi down. You could say that. A foul reaction to the (fair? unfair?) accusations violently brought against him in the press room. Stoner would have simply been sick to his stomach with rage; Marquez reacted.

In hindsight, to be generous you can say that Vale did not evaluate his opponent, but if you enter the ring insulting someone who hits hard, you have to expect him to hit harder or the anger, the nervousness destabilizes him. It happened with Casey, it didn't happen with Marc.

Anyway, these are old stories. As good old Max Biaggi, a superstar against whom Rossi used all his firepower, said, motorcycle racing is not classical music. Today there is TV, and goddamned social media, but in the past on the track they took no prisoners either. They always hammered away against each other like blacksmiths. Or perhaps more subtly, with a dab of the brakes in mid-corner. Or more devious methods.

It took Kenny Roberts ten years to swallow the bitter pill of the trap set for him at Anderstorp by Freddie Spencer, who thanks to that success in 1983 won the 500 title by a single point, but three or four titles won did not make him spiteful.

And eight titles against nine, nine against nine or ten against nine, since Valentino Rossi has now retired and is playing with little cars, will not change what we think of them by one iota. But perhaps Vale is not so convinced and he might have thought, seeing Marc Marquez's recent successes, that it was necessary to rekindle the hatred. Throwing gasoline on the fire. That's called still suffering from something unresolved, something that you still haven't made peace with. And that is a bad way to live.

I've never been a Rossi fan, I liked the long-suffering Biaggi better, more delicate, more human underneath the Roman Emperor's skin, but I've always admired not only Valentino's riding qualities - that goes without saying - but also the intelligence he's always had to give the right answers at the right time, the ability to team up, to be loved. And I'll tell you more: when he started to stop winning, because sport doesn't make any concessions for age, I discovered Rossi's most important gift, the one we should all imitate: the love of sport, of competition, wanting to be on the track, in any case. And no longer worrying about being beaten, happy with the brood that is the VR46 Academy.

Here, just thinking about who is currently the leader of that group, Pecco Bagnaia, we were very disappointed with what Valentino Rossi came out with in the videoblog. Because just as there are Marquez haters, there are also Rossi haters, and these weak-minded people might now take their frustrations out on Pecco, who does not deserve it.

Creating enemies in motorcycle racing is the last thing Valentino Rossi, as the great rider he was, and is, should do. Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna hated each other, and it was this feeling that pushed them beyond their limits, but I will not remember Alain for calling Ayrton 'a snake,' but for that brief radio conversation at Imola when they both confessed to missing each other.