Valentino Rossi Year Quotations

Every year starts from scratch. I know that I am the one everybody wants to beat. It's like I have a target on my back.

I always race to win, but last year it was like a motocross track and there was so much sand out there. I've got really bad memories of last year and you could say I have a score to settle with the circuit,

It was a fantastic race and my best race of the year by far. It was a battle between great riders and it was fantastic to win like this. I would like to say thank you to my team because the bike was very, very fast.

If I test the car for a year I can be quite competitive the next season.

In 2002 the Yamaha was at more or less the same level as the Honda, better in some ways, worse in others. But in the winter of last year between 2002 and 2003, Honda made a big step forward and it seemed as if Yamaha couldn't quite match that improvement.

We have the 2004 M1 here for reference, which is useful. It worked well here last year; we won the race and always did fast lap times so it will be interesting to compare it to the new bike and it will help us to understand which parts have improved

To win the Championship in the first year will be hard. We need time to become competitive and win races

How do Ferrari know what I'm doing next year when I don't know what I'm doing next week?

Did the fact that 2004 was so (relatively) easy to win the championship make Ferrari a little bit more complacent going into 2005, and following on from that, does this year being so difficult, make the team tougher and ready for 2006?