Rossi seals Ducati switch

Seven-time world MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi yesterday signed a two-year deal to race with Ducati, the team announced.

Yamaha rider Rossi will replace Australia’s former world champion Casey Stoner, who will race for Honda next season after four years with the Italian team.

“We are delighted to announce that Valentino Rossi will be with us from 2011,” said Ducati president Gabriele Del Torchio.

“He is a paragon of excellence in the world of motorcycling.”

The announcement sees the reigning MotoGP world champion bring an end to his hugely successful seven-season association with Yamaha.

Rossi has won four MotoGP world titles with the Japanese manufacturer since joining the factory squad from Honda in 2004, and the 31-year-old admitted leaving the team had brought a special relationship to a close.

“It is very difficult to explain in just a few words what my relationship with Yamaha has been in these past seven years,” said Rossi.

“Many things have changed since that far-off time in 2004, but especially ‘she’, my M1, has changed. At that time she was a poor middle-grid position MotoGP bike, derided by most of the riders and the MotoGP workers. Now, after having helped her to grow and improve, you can see her smiling in her garage, courted and admired, treated as the ‘top of the class’.

“Now the moment has come to look for new challenges; my work here at Yamaha is finished. Unfortunately even the most beautiful love stories finish, but they leave a lot of wonderful memories.”