Ferrari considered a Sauber Formula 1 seat for MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi in 2005, ex-chairman Luca di Montezemolo has revealed.
Back in 2004, the Italian, who was then a three-time world champion and had not long joined Yamaha, tested for the Scuderia at Fiorano wearing the helmet of Michael Schumacher.
But having started out as merely a chance to see one of the best on bikes try his hand at cars, Rossi’s performance soon caught the attention of Di Montezemolo.
“At the beginning, it was almost a courtesy to the desire of a great champion,” he was quoted by Motorsport Week.
“I saw that he was going strong, especially he lacked continuity, but he had a lot of potential and desire.
“At one point we thought, he would do a year at Sauber, but he was smart and preferred to remain number one in motorcycles than fourth or fifth in cars.”
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Indeed, Rossi went on to win the 2004 MotoGP title plus three more to reach his current tally of seven, and he’s still going now at 41, joining the Petronas Yamaha SRT outfit for 2021.
Meanwhile in F1, it was Felipe Massa who went on the path Valentino might have taken, racing for Sauber in 2004-05 before joining Ferrari alongside Schumacher in 2006.
Di Montezemolo though maintained their interest in Rossi was much more than just publicity.
“Everyone knows that it was not a publicity operation, Ferrari did not need it,” he claimed.
Rossi did have further tests with Ferrari in 2006 and 2008, and there was talk of him replacing the Brazilian after his crash in Hungary in 2009 but again nothing came of it.
In fact, it would be another decade until Valentino stepped back into an F1 car, conducting a machine swap with Lewis Hamilton in Valencia at the end of 2019.
As a result, F1 never got the chance to see if ‘The Doctor’ could have joined John Surtees as the only men to become champions on two and four wheels.