Valentino Rossi set for 2023 Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe season: “Drivers look at me like a motorcyclist”
The MotoGP legend begins the 2023 Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe season this weekend at Monza, his second year 🐓as a four-wheel racer.
He has opened up on the transition from bikes to c🥂ars, how his competitors loo♛k at him, and the differing fear factor.
“In the car they are worse than on the motorbike because, in the car, it is less scary,” Rossi told Gianluca Gazzoli’s podcast.&🐎nbsp;
“In the car you are inside a cage and therefore cras🐈hing into another is less scary.”
꧒Rossi said about his hostile welcome onto the grid: "It's difficult🔯. First of all, because the driver looks at you as if you were still a motorcyclist.
“In the sense that he says 'I've been racing🀅 cars for a lifetime, now comes this one who has always raced with motorcycles’.
“So let's say that they are even more motivated to keep me behin🅠d. And anyway there are a lot of very sꦉtrong drivers and so the level is quite high.”
Rossi described the racꦕಌing: "They use the car as a shield or in any case to annoy the opponent by exploiting the fact that the car is big.
“Overtaking with the car is much more difficult than on a motorcycle, because on a motorcycle you have 🧸four times the space.
“But it must be saꦍid that in any case racing on a motorbike is a very similar thing from many points of view and then I have aꦰlways tried to carve out the time to do two races a year with cars.
“S🎃o in any ♑case I have a good experience also on the four wheels.”
Rossi explaining why, aged 44, he still has a passion to race in cars: “My father, Graziano, had d🎉one this before.
“Graziano stopped racing in '82 and I was only three years old then. I do not remember. During my career I've alw💃ays 🔯done some races and so on.
“I've always told myself when l stop riding and I want to race in the car so I don't 🔜stop racing. That's why in the end it's the same sensations.
“You have to work every weekend with the team to be more competitive so you have the adre🌜naline of the race.
“We say the same things aꦰs with the motorbike but here in the car. It's a little bit less physica♏lly difficult.”
Rossi represents Team 🦩WRT and 🎉will team with Maxime Martin and Augusto Farfus this weekend at Monza in his #46 car.
He will be driving a BMW, after Team WRT switcheꦡd from Audi last season, for the second time after competi🎶ng in the Bathurst 12 Hours.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything fr𒁃om American sports, to football, to F1.
