2004 motogp class

2004 was a momentus year for Valentino Rossi as it marked his first year riding for Yamaha – Rossi announced his split from Honda on the eve of the final race of 2003. During his 4 seasons with Honda, Rossi had taken 3 World Championship titles and 33 premier-class victories. Rossi eventually managed to persuade Jeremy Burgess, his old crew-chief from Honda, to switch garages and join him at the factory Yamaha team. Rossi cited that he needed a new challenge and at the time Yamaha was an underperforming MotoGP team, and many critics suggested that the switch may have been too much of a challenge.

Rossi silenced his critics by wining the first race of 2004 in South Africa and set a new record of becoming the first rider to win back to back races on two different machines. Valentino and the Yamaha team went on to subsequently win nine out of the sixteen races of 2004 and won the world championship title onces again, this was Yamaha’s first world championship in 12 years.

In 2004 Valentino Rossi made the spectacular switch from Honda to Yamaha. For his first race in Welkom, South Africa, Valentino Rossi continued to wear his official 2003 helmet design, the VR 46.

The stylised black sun and yellow moon design didn’t change for 2004, and Rossi went on to win the first race of the season (becoming the first rider in history to win back to back races on different bikes), and then took his Yamaha YZR-M1 to claim 8 more wins in the season which secured him the World Championship with a total of 304 points.

The 2004 season was also notable for the intense rivalry between Rossi and Gibernau that escalated to levels previously unseen and led to a falling out between the two riders.



Location: Grand Prix of Italy (Gran Premio d’Italia Alice ), Mugello

Date: Sunday, June 6, 2004

Race position: 1st



Rossi started his first season aftre his controversial switch to Yamaha with a win at Welkom in South Africa, becoming the first rider to win back to back races on two different bikes. Following this initial win, Rossi suffered a slump in results and finished in 4th place at the next two races, Jerez and Le Mans. Expectation was high when he arrived at Mugello, and his critics pointed to his switch to Yamaha as the cause for his recent results – many speculated he should have never made the move.

Rossi unveiled a special one off Drudi designed helmet, which was designed to poke fun at his recent results which saw Rossi miss the podium on consecutive occasions for the first time since his first premier class win for Honda in 2000. The helmet was a variation on his regular helmet design from 2003-2004, but was made to look like it was made of wood. The design also featured a medal with the number four in Roman numerals (IV), made to look like it had been carved into the top of the helmet. Rossi said that the story behind the design was steeped in Italian tradition, where the saying goes that if you take 4th place – then you get the wooden medal.

Rossi ended up breaking his recent poor run of form at Mugello in 2004 and won the race, ahead of Sete Gibernau and Max Biaggi.



Location: Grand Prix of Australia, Phillip Island

Date: Sunday, October 17th, 2004

Race position: 1st



On the penultimate round of the 2004 MotoGP season at Phillip Island in Australia, Rossi only needed a 2nd place finish to seal his first world championship with Yamaha (in his first season with them). The pressure was on Sete Gibernau, who was closest to Rossi in terms of points, making it a must-win race for him. Gibernau started from Pole position, but it was Capirossi who snatched the lead when the race started. Gibernau fought back and eventually took the lead, whilst Rossi was content to sit back and start trailing him. Rossi waited until lap 22 to make his move and took the lead, where he remained to take the race, and his 6th World Championship – his first with Yamaha.

Valentino Rossi (Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha) said:

“Today was a fantastic finish to a fantastic championship. This track is great and today there was a hard battle up until the last lap. In some parts I was faster than Gibernau and some other places slower. I was sure of my feeling on the bike though. I made a bit of a bad start but wanted to stick with Sete. I managed to pass him early on in the race but he came back, and then at the end it became a great battle again. The last lap was a lot of fun for everybody watching it. I want to say thanks to everyone who has worked so hard, to Yamaha and all my team. It was fantastic, thank you. I think this year has been my best championship winning year.”


On the cool-down lap Valentino Rossi stopped to change into a specially designed helmet to celebrate his achievement. The helmet was plain white, and had the words ‘Che Spettacolo’ written in bold black lettering around the helmet and featured the number ’46′ on the top. ‘Che Spettacolo’ means ‘The Special One’ in Italian.





Location: Sepang, Malaysia

Date: November, 2004

Position: 1st (fastest over 3 days)

Rossi and Edwards began testing the new Yamaha at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia for the winter testing session in late November. Rossi ended the 3 day test as the fastest rider overall on track and things looked promising for when testing resumed in early 2005.

Rossi said:

“Weve been working on the new bike lots during these three days; it seems we do more and more testing every year, and start even earlier! Yamaha has put in a lot of effort to bring this bike here and enable us to start work on it in the right direction for next year, so it was very important for me to be here.
Not every part of this prototype bike is new, but Yamaha has changed a lot. We are aiming for more stability in the rear end, but we want to keep the sweet handling. We are also looking for a little more horsepower; as everyone knows, which is one area we need to improve on. We are still not quite there yet, but Yamaha engineers will continue this work during the winter and then I am sure we will be nearer our goal when we meet again in January. I am now looking forward to a long holiday! “

Rossi had a new helmet to show off for the testing sessions during winter 2004, and the start of 2005 – The design was based on a famous washing powder brand, complete with washing instructions on the rear of the helmet. The design was used to portray Rossi as a ‘cleaner’, and to make a statement on how he has ‘cleaned-up’, or won everything, in all the series that make up MotoGP (125cc, 250cc, 500cc, and now MotoGP). Either side of the helmet featured the word ‘Rossi’ in the design of a famous detergent and had the slogan “Rossi: Faster than this is impossible”. This caused some minor issues with Proctor and Gamble who owned the washing powder brand that the Rossi helmet was based on and they asked him to cease using the design. The back of the helmet featured ‘washing instructions’ at 46 degrees for victory in 125cc, 250cc, 500cc, and MotoGP.