2009 motogp class

2009 saw Valentino Rossi take his 9th World Championship Title. Rossi’s main rival throughout the season was his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, but Rossi managed to tie up the World Title at Sepang with one race left.

The AGV Celebr-8 helmet was designed and presented to Valentino Rossi in 2008 to celebrate his 8th World Championship. The original Celebr-8 helmet was black (to find out about the black celebr-8 helmet click here).

So far in 2009, Rossi has continued to wear the Celebr-8 helmet design, but has opted for a newer yellow version. The design is essentially the same as the black verasion with a chequered stripe running through the length of the helmet, with a number 8 (representing the number of world titles that Rossi has now won) positioned on the top. Rossi’s number ’46′ race number is position on the side.

In 2009 Rossi signed a deal with Monster Energy drinks and the yellow version of the Celebr-8 helmet marked the first appearance of the ‘Monster Claw’ logo.



The AGV GP Tech Rossi Helmet 5 Continents helmet was the primary lid of choice for Rossi throughout the 2008 MotoGP season, and has been carried over to the 2009 and 2010 seasons as the primary race helmet. Its a fantastic and colourful design by Aldo Drudi.

The design is an evolution of Rossi’s trademark sun and moon themes (said to represent the two sides of Rossi’s personality), and both feature feature heavily, and return to their original positions: the sun ahead, the moon behind. Each of the rays of light coming from the sun, have been individually designed to represent one of the five continents that MotoGP races take place in. Each ray depicts images associated with the continent that they are representing: Oceania is the same design that was used on the Dreamtime helmet in Philip Island in 2007 for the Winter Test and features icons of Aborigines feet to represent Australasia. Asia depicts a dragon, Africa depicts tribal art, Europe has a famous sketch from Leonardo da Vinci, and finally, Indian artwork represents the Americas.





Location: Mugello, Italy

Date: Sunday May 31, 2009

Race position: 3rd


AGV Rossi Mugello (‘Hands’) Helmet 2009

After finishing in last place in the previous race (Le Mans), Rossi came to Mugello under a great deal of pressure - his home crowd wanted to see him take his 8th consecutive win at Mugello, but Rossi also had to contend with Jorge Lorenzo being in an astonishing run of form, as well as a resurgent Casey Stoner. This would arguably be Rossi’s toughest challenge in quite a while.

The Helmet:

As is tradition, Rossi revealed a new helmet design for the Mugello race. Designed by Aldo Drudi, it featured Rossi’s gloved hands painted on either side of the helmet giving the impression that Rossi was holding his head in his hands. The helmet had a dark blue backgrouund, and the rear of the helmet had a cartoon of Rossi’s two Bulldogs, called Cesare and Cecilia, who also had their paws covering their heads. The design was finished off with a yellow number ‘46′ at the top and rear of the helmet, and the colours of the Italian flag at the base.

Rossi said he had the design created to signify the unique pressure and stress of the Mugello round – the track is a tough physical test for the riders with lots of fast turns, and Rossi has the added expectation of a huge home crowd all there expecting to see him win and maintain his unbeaten record.

The race began on a wet track and it was Casey Stoner and Chris Vermeulen that took the early lead. Fot the first few laps Rossi was content to sit back and watch Stoner, Vermeulen, Dovizioso trade position at the front. Rossi took the lead on lap 9, but then came in to change tyres to slicks on lap 10 as the track had sufficiently dried. Rossi came back out on a hard compound tyre that took a number of laps to get up to temperature which cost him dearly. Lorenzo made a stunning surge back up to take second place, whilst Casey Stoner comfortably led the race. Rossi had to battle hard and managed to take 3rd place.

Valentino Rossi:

“Of course I am disappointed not to win again in Mugello but seven times in a row is not so bad and the important thing is that I made it onto the podium. It’s a very special moment in Mugello, with all the fans below, and I would have been very sad to have missed that!

It was a very hard race today and once again the weather was a problem for us, we’re very unlucky in these half-and-half races and I think this is my first podium in one.

In the wet we were very fast because we had found a great setting, but then when we changed bikes we made a mistake and chose a front tyre that was too hard, so it took me a long time to be able to put enough temperature on it and I lost a lot of time. At the end I was able to ride better and I knew that I had to make it onto the podium, so I am happy for this. Of course after Le Mans this is a big improvement and these points are important because it’s very close between the three of us.”



AGV Rossi Misano ‘Donkey’ Helmet 2009

Location: Misano, Italy

Date: Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th September, 2009

Race position: 1st

Valentino Rossi unveiled a new helmet design for his home GP of Misano. The specially designed helmet featured the face of the donkey from the film ‘Shrek’ positioned on the top of his helmet. Rossi had the new helmet design created as an attempt to poke fun at himself for crashing out of the Indianapolis MotoGP the week before, throwing away valuable points from his championship lead.

Rossi said:
“If anyone is wondering about my helmet – I have the donkey on it because in Italy, if you make a stupid mistake we say that you are a donkey.

“As soon as I hit the ground at Indianapolis I thought what a donkey I was. Later I thought that would make a good helmet design for my home race.

“So, I may have lost 25 points but I solved the problem of the helmet design for Misano!. I think it’s very funny.”

“Since Indianapolis, when I made that mistake, we have been so focused and concentrated and everyone deserves this result. I was the ‘flying donkey’ today!”

The Helmet:
The helmet was designed by Aldo Drudi, and is similar to Valentino’s ‘My Face’ helmet from Mugello 2008, with the exception that his face is replaced with the smiling face of the donkey from the film ‘Shrek’. The rear of the helmet features the words “The Donkey” written where normally it would say “The Doctor” (and in the same style). Above it, there is a translation of ‘The Donkey’ written in the dialect spoken in his own Romagna area: ‘El Sumer’. The helmet also features Rossi’s dogs who can be seen at the rear of the helmet, laying down wearing donkey ears.



Location: Grand Prix of Malaysia, Sepang

Date: Sunday, October 25, 2009

Race position: 3rd

Rossi secured his 9th World Championship title with 1 race remaining (Valencia) by taking 3rd place in a wet Malaysian GP.

In order to claim the Championship, Rossi had to finish in 4th place (in order to keep 25 points between him and his nearest rival, Jorge Lorenzo). The race began badly for Rossi – starting from pole, he went wide at the first turn and ended up being swamped and dropping back to the middle of the pack. From this position he shadowed Lorenzo until they were in 4th and 5th position respectively. With 14 laps remaining Rossi made his pass on Lorenzo and moved up into fourth spot (Rossi took 3rd position when Dovizioso crashed out of 3rd) and cruised to the finish line in 3rd behind Stoner and Pedrosa.

Rossi celebrated with members of his fan club, by dressing up in a celebratory T-Shirt and helmet with the number 9 on and the words “Old Hen Makes Good Broth”. Rossi then had his photo taken with a live chicken and nine eggs, before putting on the new helmet and riding off to celebrate. The significance of the chicken was a joke at Rossi’s age and is based on “Gallina Vecchia!” an Italian saying that states that the old chicken makes good soup, but it’s no use for laying eggs. Despite being 30, Rossi had laid yet another egg by claiming his 9th World Title

The helmet had a cartoon chicken on the top, laying an egg with the number 9 on it.

Valentino Rossi said:
“It’s great to be World Champion again, I am very proud to have done this nine times in my career. I want to thank everyone in my team, Furusawa-san, Davide Brivio, Lin Jarvis, Jeremy…everybody! This season has been very hard and Lorenzo especially has pushed me to new limits, but I think it’s been a great duel for everyone to watch.

The t-shirt and the celebration is called the ‘Gallina Vecchia!” In Italian we say that the old chicken makes good soup, but it’s no use for laying eggs. I am old now, 30, but this old hen has made another egg today and now we have nine! As usual I thought it up at home in Tavullia, together with my fan club, and we had great fun designing the t-shirt and the helmet.”