2006 motogp class

The 2006 MotoGP season was notable for two reasons – firstly, it marked the last year that 990cc four-stroke bikes were specified to race (maximum engine capacity was reduced to 800cc in 2007). Secondly, it marked the year that Valentino Rossi’s previous domination of the MotoGP class ended, when Nicky Hayden became World Champion. Hayden had only won a small handful of races, but had been consistently in the top 3 for most of the season and was clocking up the points. Rossi staged an impressive comeback in the second half of the season and held the points advantage in the last two races, only to crash out in the final round at Valencia - Hayden finished in 3rd place, which was enough to hand him the title.

990cc four-stroke bikes were specified to race. The enormous power advantage of the larger displacement four-stroke engine over the two-stroke eliminated all two-strokes from competition; the following season no two-stroke bikes were racing. In 2007 the maximum engine capacity was reduced to 800cc without reducing the existing weight restrictions.

For the Winter Test at Sepang, Malaysia, Rossi came to the track with a new AGV helemt. It featured a huge number ’46′ in yellow that wrapped around the front and sides of the helmet. The top remained plain black, but featured 7 bullet holes that ran down from the top to the back. The 7 shots represented Rossi’s nu,ber of World Titles.

Valentino Rossi (2’02.14, 74 Laps):

“It’s always a little difficult to start again after the holidays, and I am never sure if I will be able to ride well straight away! Today however everything has felt good right from the start and I am already quite fast. The new M1 is a good bike, I like it and I can see that Yamaha has worked very hard over the winter. We had a few problems with it today; some chattering, but in reality it is good for this stage of the year. We still have a lot of work to do on it of course. The new bike is not so different from the 2005 bike, but still we have to understand completely its character and I have to get more confidence in it, then we can begin to make the modifications needed in order to improve it. Today has just been about understanding the bike, tomorrow we will concentrate more on tyres with Michelin.”





One of Valentino Rossi’s most used helmet designs during the 2006 and 2007 seasons of MotoGP was the Aldo Drudi designed AGV Gothic helmet. The Gothic design is a simple, bold, and striking paint job that heavily features Rossi’s two most popular recurring themes - the Sun, and the Moon.

The Gothic design been used previously and had been seen in different colour schemes in 2006 (see Gothic Black, and Gothic White), but it was the Gothic Yellow that was was seen the most in 2007. The Gothic Yellow featured a yellow sun on a black background on the right hand side of the helmet, and a black crescent moon on a yellow background on the left hand side of the helmet. Like previous Gothic designs used, the rear of the helmet featured ‘VR’ – Rossi’s initials in an embossed looking, gold lettering.

Rossi opened his 2007 MotoGP campaign wearing the yellow Gothic helmet design, and continued racing in it for most races throughout the season…except for the last few where he switched to the more detailed Dreamtime design.

Some of Rossi’s more superstitious fans have suggested that the Gothic design represents bad luck for Rossi due to the helmet’s coincidence with Nicky Hayden’s championship win in 2006, and Casey Stoner’s in 2007.



The AGV Gothic helmets come in 3 main colour variations – White, Yellow, and Black. This features the same design as all other Rossi Gothic helmets, except it features a white sun and black moon on a black background. It was has been used on a regular basis and the Gothic Black was ofter favoured in practice or qualifying sessions, with Valentino switching to the Gothic Yellow for race day.

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

Date: Sunday, June 4, 2006

Race position: 1st

AGV Rossi Mugello 2006 Helmet by Milo Manara

Mugello was round 6 of the 2006 MotoGP season and turned out to be one of the most exciting races in years as Rossi eventually took the win, but not after a huge battle with Loris Capirossi, Marco Melandri, and both the Repsol Hondas of Nicky Hayden and Dani Pedrosa. The race was also Valentino Rossi’s 5th consecutive win at his home Grand Prix.

As has become tradition, Rossi had a specially designed helmet created for the event. The helmet for 2006 was designed by Milo Manara, an Italian artist and writer best known for his graphic novels, comic books, and distinctive erotic art. Manara has a reputation for writing and illustrating comics that feature elegantly drawn, beautiful, and semi-dressed women exploring erotic and fantasy storylines.

The helmet design was not dominated by the sun and the moon, as past Rossi helmets have been, but instead featured significant symbols from Rossi’s life in a comic storyboard format. The righthand side of the helmet featured Enzo Ferrari, and the lefthand side featured Steve McQueen – two men that Rossi counts as his heros. The top of the helmet is plit into 4 storyboard panels and features Manara’s drawings of Rossi, his dog Guido, Osvaldo the chicken (an early sponsor of Rossi that featured notably in one of Rossi’s on-track celebrations), and one of the topless girls that Manara is famous for in his artwork. The back of the helmet featured the number 74 in tribute to the late Daijiro Kato (Kato died in 2003 after a crash, 74 was his racing number) and the word “Quarantasei” – the Italian for ’46′.

Rossi said:

“My new helmet design is by a famous Italian cartoonist called Milo Manara. He has drawn a kind of mythical story of my life, with some of my heroes like Steve McQueen, Enzo Ferrari and Jim Morrison, with other characters like my dog Guido, Osvaldo the chicken and lots of beautiful women! I really like it and Milo is somebody I have admired for a long time.”

Milo Manara also worked with Rossi on an actual comic book called Quarantasei in July 2006 that was created by Manara as a fantasy work on the life of Rossi. It doesn’t seem to be readily available online at the outlets that you would expect (Amazon etc..) but we managed to find a link to it here: http://www.leopoldobloom.it/dett.asp?id=1

Some pages and artwork from it can be seen in the image gallery below.