The MotoGP legend🅷’s switch from 🐠Honda to Yamaha in 2004 is among the biggest rider moves of all time.

Although he would become iconic for his glory alongside Yamaha, at the time ey�🤡�ebrows were raised because he was swapping a title-winning bike for a machine which wasn’t competitive.

Honda wouldn’t let him test his Yamaha at the 2003 postseason test, raising the expꦏectation levels even furthe🉐r for when Rossi could finally get his hands on his new bike.

“I remember the first time we saw the Yamaha up 🤪close on the night of Donington in 2003 when they left the garage door open at midnight,” Rossi’s friend and right-hand man Uccio Salucci told . 

“Vale and I left the motorhome like two secret agents: black sweat♛shirts, be careful! 

“When we opened the door there were🌠 all the Yamaha bosses inside. Davide Brivio, Masahiko Nakashima and Carlos Checa's bike were there. 

“When I saw it I was speechless, but because it was a very ugly motorbike, poorly made, full 🎶of cables lying aro꧂und, very crude. 

“We, o🙈n the other hand, were used to seeing the Honda every day, which instead was a masterpiece of technology. 

“I remember that Vale looked at me and made an expression like saying ‘goddamn... have you seen ꦐwhat kind of bike it is?’ 

“And I lowered my head as if to say🌳 we'd talk about it l𝔍ater. 

“When we entered the motorhome he said to me:💯 'F*** Uccio, it se𝄹ems 10 years behind ours'.

“I told him that that made no difference, everything else made a difference🌃 and that the bike would grow in hurry with people like him, Brivio and Masao Furuzawa. 

“I maintained my position also because now... When I thin🃏k back to these things, because every now and then it happens to me, I think that we were young! We were 24 years old...we were tough at that time.”

Famously, Rossi would win his first race on a Yamaha and would capture the championship in 2004, winning consecuti🍎ve titl🐭es with two different manufacturers.

His move to Yamaha, and the decis💙ion to quit Honda despite winning the title, went against all 𝔉logic at the time.

“When in 2004 we went to Yamaha there was great instinct, if we ♏had followed the reasoning we wouldn't haveꦦ gone there. 

“Wh🐟y leave a winning b💖ike like the Honda to go on a not-winning bike like Yamaha? At the time it was crazy.

“At that time we weren't happy anymore and we decided to leave,ꦰ but very openly. 

“As we were, playful, expansive, cheerful, we didn't feel at ease and we left.&nཧbsp;

“We talked abou🍰t it just a short time ago on holiday, when we spe❀nt a few days together.

“And he told me: 'Only🗹 twoꦬ idiots like you and me could give up Honda to go to Yamaha'. 

“We still think about it every now and then.”

Salucci’s deep understanding of his friend’s❀ psyche was a key reason he was in favour of quitting Honda for a new challenge.

"At that moment I pushed like a beast to go to Yamaha, because I knew that if Vꦯale didn't have any more fun, then big problems would𝓰 arise,” he said. 

“In the sense that, like in South Africa which we lost to Ukawa, 🌠we started to not have the right 🐽feeling, the concentration, the right approach. “And if you arrive at the races like this, even if you are the strongest, the others will beat you.

“We were taking that path there: we were going slower and we no longer had t🥂hat great desire to go to the races. 

“So it was time for a change of scenery and I must say that Davide Brivio, together with Lin Jarvis and Furuzawua, did a perfect, but not insistent, I would say elegant work of convincing and t🃏hen it went 𝕴well. 

“Fortunately we w🅷ere right to change the scenery.”