Italian MotoGP Stars Cope With Lockdown

On Saturday, March 7, Italy’s government took the extraordinary step of locking down Milan and other 11 provinces where the coronavirus emergency was most serious. Among those areas is Pesaro, where Valentino Rossi and the VR46 Academy riders live. They experienced the quarantine before the red zone extended to the whole of Italy just a few days later.

When cancellation of the MotoGP opener in Qatar was announced, all six Italian MotoGP riders—Valentino Rossi, Andrea Dovizioso, Danilo Petrucci, Franco Morbidelli, Francesco “Pecco” Bagnaia, and Andrea Iannone—were at home when they received the news of the lockdown until April 3. From that moment the dominoes fell; schools, gyms, bars, shops, restaurants, cinemas, and theaters were closed. Even mass was canceled.

On Sunday, March 8, the first day of the quarantine, in a surreal atmosphere each watched the first round of Moto3 and Moto2 on TV. It was frustrating to follow the action from home, but they all agreed that MotoGP reacted promptly, and it would have been wrong for them—who had already returned to Italy—to take the risk to head back to Doha.

“We received the news of the cancellation at the very last moment when we were packing and ready to leave,” Petronas Yamaha Sepang Racing’s Morbidelli commented, “At the beginning it was hard to reset, but then you look at the bigger picture, and you realize that there are more important things in life.”

But how has quarantine in Italy changed the habits of the athletes?

Racers are used to a fixed daily routine—a precise calendar of races, test sessions, and training programs that repeat themselves week after week, year after year. The cancellation of the Qatar race represented a sudden change in the riders’ routine, and now the racers’ mindset is undermined by the uncertainty.

The challenge now is to maintain motivation. “Some days have passed since the quarantine has started, and day after day it’s harder,” Aprilia factory rider Iannone stated. “There is a lot of uncertainty, and if we are overwhelmed by this feeling, the risk of discouragement is high. For this reason, I maintain my focus on my targets. I train, eat, and rest, and the following day I repeat the same routine, again and again. Every day. I’m training because I want to improve myself, I’m paying attention to what I eat, privileging healthy and tasty ingredients, and then I rest, using this time to regroup and reorder my thoughts. And the following day I repeat the same routine. We need to look at this situation from a different perspective, focusing on our priorities. We need to take this time as an opportunity and be ready for when the normality will return.”

“We are used to having fixed points—a calendar articulated on precise appointments. It’s a routine that repeats itself year after year, so the fact that we don’t know when we will be back on track is mentally heavy,” Ducati factory rider Dovizioso echoed.

Training represents a central part of the daily routine of a racer. Despite all the restrictions, professional athletes have special permission to train, but with all the gyms closed, training also becomes an issue. Luckily, Rossi and Dovizioso have a proper gym at home or in the workshop next door, while others, like Petrucci, Bagnaia, or Morbidelli, who used to train in public gyms, are doing the best they can, training at home. Iannone, on the other hand, left Milan (the first and hardest hit area in Italy by the coronavirus emergency) to continue his preparation in nearby Lugano, Switzerland.

With an absolute-must of remaining at home to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the Italian MotoGP riders are expressing all their creativity, dedicating their time to hobbies. Pramac Ducati’s Bagnaia has just bought a new oven, and he enjoys cooking and experimenting with new recipes.

“I feel lucky because I am living with my girlfriend Domizia, so I’m not completely alone here in Pesaro. What do we do? The other day I went to the supermarket, and I bought some table games. We play together, we watch TV series, we listen to music. I also bought the new autobiography of Roger Federer. And then I cook. I love it. We just bought a new oven, so now we cook everything in the oven. It’s good fun.”

Born to a Brazilian mother and Italian father, Morbidelli takes advantage of this special time to learn to play the harmonica and listen to all kinds of music.

Tidying up the workshop is on top of the list for Ducati rider Dovizioso, who has a nice property just outside Forli, with a big garden, a barn transformed into his private gym, and a workshop for his bikes, and then the house where his mom lives.

Considering that they cannot ride at the Ranch, Rossi and all the other riders of the VR46 academy challenge themselves on Playstation, preferably with touring cars. On top of training, Playstation, and watching TV, they also focus on charity and social responsibility. Rossi and the VR46 are the protagonists of the social media campaign #distantimauniti #farbutunited, to promote the absolute priority to follow the instructions, remain at home, and distance (at least 1 meter) from each other.

“We need to remain distant but united in the common goal to stop the spread of the virus in order to return as soon as possible to normality,” posted Rossi, who was among the first to answer to the appeal of his region, Marche, with an important donation. Originally from Turin, Bagnaia involved his fan club to promote a charity campaign called “Together vs. the Coronavirus” to raise funds to support the intensive care departments of the Molinette Hospital in his hometown.

For now, the Italian stars of MotoGP wait, ready to return to the track. But really, they are just like the rest of us—caught in the midst of a global pandemic with much time on their hands trying to make the best of it.