The Austrian rounds have seen the return of Dani Pedrosa and Cal Crutchlow to MotoG🥃P competition, as a wild-card and injury replacement respectively.

Might Valentino Rossi one day do the same?

The nine time world champion♒ announced on the eve of the first Austrian round that he will retire from MotoGP at the end of this season. But will it be a complete stop or migh🌺t the #46 one day ride competitively again, either in testing or as a wild-card?

"What I've learned in my career is 'never say never'. So at this moment I'll say 'I don’t think🦹 so', becaꦗuse compared to Dani and Cal my problem is that I am older! But why not?" Rossi replied.

"I 💝think that anyway I will miss riding the MotoGP bike, so maybe I can have aꦬ chance to try. For sure it's something that I will miss deeply. So why not? But at this moment we don’t have any program."

The 42-year-old added: "For me, one story is to try the MotoGP bike in a test or in some private day. Another story is to💝 make a race like Dani or Cal, because to make a🌊 race weekend is difficult.

"But if🏅 [I did a 🐈wild-card], I would prefer some good track for me like Mugello, Misano, Barcelona or Assen I think."

The Petro🎀nas Yamaha rider was speaking after finishing the opening day of the second Red Bull Ring round 14th (+1.5s) fastest in the dry morning session, then 16th (+7.2s) on wet tyres in the afternoon.

"FP1 was not too bad because the track had a good grip and already good conditions so we could work a little bit for the race pace," Rossi said. "The feeling was quite good because I was already a lot faster compared to last week, but as always in the second race everybody is very strong from FP1. Anyway I was not so far in ♏the position and also my pace was quite good.

🔯"In FP2 the conditions were very particular becauℱse it rained a lot but at the same time it remained very hot. So after 20 minutes we already had a dry line. The performance and feeling with the bike at the beginning in the full wet was quite good but after in the half-half conditions we suffered very much because it's not easy, it's like we don’t use very well the rear tyre and we lose a lot in acceleration.

"So we hope, especially for Sunday, that 𝕴have a full wet or full d𝔍ry race."

Temporary team-mate Crutchlow, starting his second weekend in place of the injured Franco Morbidelli, was 𓃲20th and 17th fastest.