Asian Moto JP

Speaking to the press ahead of the Monster Energy Grand Prix de France at Le Mans, the nine-time World Champion refuted rumours that had surfaced about his possible retirement at the end of the current season.

Rossi stated his desire to ride on for at least two further years in the Championship as he made it abundantly clear that retirement was not on his radar.

“For me it’s very difficult to understand where the news starts because I never speak about my retirement, and I want to race in MotoGP for the next two years for sure,” said the Italian.

Rossi also confirmed that he would be at Mugello in the aftermath of the Le Mans weekend, in order to make up for the cancelled day of testing at Estoril which was lost to poor weather.

“For us it was important, because we had some new stuff to try,” said Rossi. “For this race here it [the set-up] will be the same [as in Portugal] and next week we will go to Mugello for some testing, where we can try some new parts so we can increase our speed.”

Looking ahead to this weekend’s fourth round, for which the practice sessions commence on Friday morning, Rossi continued: “I like the track, it’s good, it’s difficult and you always have to fight with the weather! But we come here from having not such a bad weekend in Portugal, and we will continue in that way and try to improve our performance to get closer to the guys in front of us.

“Last year was our best result with the Ducati here, so we will see. We are optimistic and we will try to improve our performance.”

The American endured a torrid race at the Losail circuit finishing in 11th place as a result of chronic chatter issues after some pre-race crashes complicated the bike´s race set-up. The Andalucian circuit holds even worse memories for Spies, as he crashed out of second place with three laps to go in last year´s race held in very wet conditions, and failed to finish the race in 2010.

However, the former World Superbike champion is in an upbeat mood and feels he has the pace and confidence to challenge for a podium this time out.

Spies: “I’m feeling good, I haven’t had great results at Jerez yet but we had a really positive test there so I’m confident. The Yamaha M1 is working well at all circuits we’ve been to so far. After a tough start at Qatar my goal at Jerez is starting the season again, I’m going to do the best I can to deliver. We had a good Qatar weekend except for the race, we know our pace is strong, the bike is competitive and I’m riding well so we should have a successful weekend.”

Spies will no doubt be buoyed by his pre-season performances at the 4.423km track on the Yamaha YZR-M1, where he finished the official MotoGP™ test in fourth place, just 0.715s behind Repsol Honda´s Casey Stoner earlier this year.

Team Director Massimo Meregalli mirrors Spies´ feelings: “We are arriving in Jerez in the best possible way after Jorge’s win in Qatar. The team is very confident that we can continue to deliver strong results. Despite the issue in the race Ben had a very strong weekend in Qatar in the practice sessions so we know he can be very competitive against his rivals. When we tested here earlier in the year the 2012 1000cc M1 was immediately fast so we expect to start this way on Friday.”

Fresh from the pre-Le Mans press conference where rival Casey Stoner announced his retirement plans, Rossi talked about the loss to MotoGP, whilst adding that he has no such thoughts just yet.

“Is a shock for everybody. Nobody expected the rumours [about Casey’s retirement] to be true. It’s a great pity for MotoGP, because we lose a great rider. I want to continue for a minimum of two more years. This is real – I’m not retiring!”

As well as discussing the current climate in MotoGP and giving his views on the new CRT class, Rossi also talked about the future of Italian MotoGP racers: “Antonelli and Fenati are very fast [Moto3], and in Moto2 there are also a lot of fast riders like Andrea Iannone.” Yet he was quick to point out that his 14-year-old younger brother has also just started racing in Moto3 in the Italian Championship and is: “Quite fast.”

The discussion soon turned more personal with the nine-times world champion revealing that “pizza with mayonnaise” and “smurf-flavoured ice-cream” are among his favourite foods, while having to dodge marriage-requests and handing out a somewhat suspect phone number.

Take a look at the full video for all the amusing anecdotes, a revelation of who he would have loved to have raced, and a nice memory of his late friend Marco Simoncelli.