Valentino Rossi secured his ninth world championship title yesterday, cementing his position as the greatest motocycle racer of all time.  He’s claimed titles on five different types of motorcycle (125cc,250cc,500cc two strokes and 990 and 800cc four-strokes), lapped 0.5 seconds slower than Michael Schumacher in an F1 car and won events in a WRC rally car.

What’s also important is that since 2000, when Rossi arrived in the premier class on a 500cc GP motorcycle, he has been teamed with probably the best chief engineer in motorcycling, Jeremy Burgess, and a tightly-knit pit crew who followed him from Honda to Yamaha in 2004 as he became the second rider in history to retain the world championship after swapping bike manufacturers.

And Rossi has even picked up some notable tech fans in Robert Scoble and Dave Winer.

Valentino Rossi by T.Tanabe on Flickr (CC Licence)

Having spent a decade watching, reading about, and writing about Vale’s amazing success with Jeremy Burgess, I think the pair share three approaches which apply to success in any situation:

5 Ps – Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance:

Valentino was lucky enough to have grown up with an ex-GP racer dad, Graziano, and from an early age was able to practice on two and four wheels – often racing around local gravel pits with various racers in a go-kart, this gave him a great preparation in handling a vehicle which is sliding around – something you can notice as he often laps fastest towards the end of the race when everyone should be suffering with tyre wear. He’s also able to change his riding style to accomodate this, and Burgess famously said he can tell on which lap a photo of Rossi has been taken by the way he’s moving his body to adjust to the tyres.

K.I.S.S – Keep It Simple, Stupid:

A lot of riders have been overwhelmed by the amount of adjustability on a GP bike – particularly those who have transferred from the rival World Superbike series. JB, who also helped fellow motorcycling legend Mick Doohan to five world titles, and Freddie Spencer to a further world crown, is famous for telling it like it is, and keeping a tight focus on what needs to be done.

M.I.L.L.F – Make It Look Like Fun:

I was hoping this would end up as MILF for search traffic, but there you go – one of the key elements of the fanatical fame and support that Valentino has achieved is that he has always come across as easy-going, likeable and having fun.

His post-race celebrations have calmed down in recent years, but included costumes, props, and even nipping into a trackside portaloo on one occasion. He’s also known for enjoying the racing itself and often claims to have enjoyed a hard race which ends with him in second, than an easy victory – and famously once he managed to oversleep and miss the morning practice session at a Grand Prix!

But all of this masks someone who is incredibly dedicated and hard-working to achieve what he wants both behind the scenes and on the track. He’s lauded for his test and analysis numerous changes to the motorcycle at once, when most riders would struggle. And at the same time he plays a psychological game with his rivals, managing to push riders like Sete Gibernau and Max Biaggi into mistakes over the years.

I’d embed some examples of his on-track exploits, including the famous collisions with the likes of Gibernau and Biaggi when needed, but in attempting to be nice to the copyright holders, I have to acknowledge they’ve disabled embedding their Youtube channel (like idiots).

If you’re interested in more insight into both Rossi and Burgess, I highly recommend Valentino Rossi: MotoGenius by Matt Oxley (Disclosure: We both worked for MCN around the same time although our paths rarely, if ever, crossed). And for more insight into the psyche of world champion motorcycle racers, including their relationship with ‘flow’, I’d also recommend his The Fast Stuff: Twenty years of top bike racing tales from the world’s maddest motorsport.