While he might have chopped off his curls, Valentino Rossi is still the most famous Italian bike rider around – seven times world champion, he is the only rider in the history of motorcycling to have won the world championships in four different classes.
He is also the only to have one for two consecutive years with two different brands (Honda and Yamaha), together with American Eddie Lawson.
Rossi holds the record for the most consecutive wins in the MotoGP class, at 23 podium appearances.
Rossi is an authentic national hero in Italy, although he has residency in London, supposedly giving him some tax exemptions.
After controversy over personal income and tax returns being revealed in Italy, Rossi has also been accused of tax evasion, creating some reverberations here and perhaps making him lose some of his legendary cool-headedness on the track.
In a great interview with Paronama First, Rossi tells us about himself, saying:“Finally I can enjoy my things.
I’ve been very fortunate in life, but everything that I’ve got, I’ve earned through working my arse off, nobody has given me anything.
”In February Rossi closed a process with the Italian tax agency, committing himself to paying 35 million euros in 12 instalments.
He has returned to being Italian, to all effects and purposes.
He’s come back home, admitted to being wrong (not straight away but he has), non of which was necessarily a given.
“For everyone it’s difficult to say ‘I was wrong’.
Some people I know would never do it, not even under torture, like Fonzie from Happy Days.
But I felt a weight lifted because I wanted to make this decision already a few years ago, but they advised me not to.
The situation has meant I was right, but about two years late.
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