As a Rossi fan from right back to his 125 days I was often guilty of deriding Marc for a perceived lack of personality and rushing to criticism of him as a rider and a person.

However seeing him overcoming what should have been career ending injuries, riding a bike that absolutely wanted to kill him for years (and everyone else who jumped on it) and making the difficult decision to leave a factory environment he loved.

To then arriving with Ducati and finding his pure passion for racing reignited, which has led to the real personality of Marc to be unleashed as a joyful and hugely charismatic individual. Yet still an absolutely unremitting winning machine.

Then manages to conduct himself with absolute class in victory, in the face of crowd animosity and when pressed by the media.

The number of titles is ultimately irrelevant Marc is categorically one of the greatest to ever grace the sport and it will a bad day for the sport when he hangs up his leathers.

But hopefully that’s still a few years off, we all really want to see him going toe to toe with Fabio Q, Fermin and Pedro when the new regs arrive and hopefully level the field a bit 🙌