Sepang 2015: The sad reality that still haunts Valentino Rossi after MotoGP’s biggest crash

Rewatching the 2015 MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix, the thing that stands out to me most is how nervous Valentino Rossi was on his Yamaha in the early laps. In fact, it didn’t look like Rossi, the undisputed GOAT of MotoGP who has reshaped the entire championship over the past few years.

On October 25, 2015, Rossi had his first opportunity to win that year’s World Championship, but this was his first since 2009. Since then, he suffered a effectively season-ending leg fracture in 2010, an ill-fated move to Ducati, and has since returned to Yamaha, no longer the dominant force he once was.

In the late 2000s, things were changing for Rossi. And while Ducati struggled, the likes of Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa went from strength to strength, and in 2013 a new threat appeared on the grid in Marc Marquez.

Lost in the chaos of 2015’s bitter finale was the fact that Rossi had put together a truly remarkable campaign. He had four wins including a vintage ride in the wet at Silverstone. He was on the podium in every round of the 13 races leading up to Misano, only coming off the podium three times, all of which were in the top five.

And it was against my Yamaha teammate Lorenzo, who was definitely the faster of the pair. After falling behind in the first three rounds, Lorenzo won four on the bounce for a total of seven wins. When he was leading the race, it was almost impossible to take him into account. Losing to such an opponent shouldn’t really be embarrassing for Rossi, even to this day. Far from it.

After winning a dominant second title in 2014, Marquez had to contend with Honda, which refused to accept his bombastic riding style. He ultimately learned a lot from that campaign, especially about when to wave the white flag in a race he can’t win. The fact that he went undefeated and won titles from 2016 to 2019 is a testament to those lessons.

Rossi and Marquez battled it out on track during the first half of the 2015 campaign. There was a collision at the end of the Argentine Grand Prix, and Rossi, who was faster and had better tires, took the victory. Then there was the Assen debacle in the final corner, with Marquez trying to squeeze inside, before Rossi cut the final chicane to take the win.

While the latter annoyed Marquez, there is much to suggest that Rossi was more irritated by the events of the previous year. Marquez was invited to the VR46 ranch in 2014 and is said to have turned up with the factory HRC crew to ensure he had a competitive edge against Rossi. By all accounts, what happened next on the track would have thrown Yamaha and Honda’s respective management into fits.

The road to Sepang 2015 is very likely to start with something rather trivial. But the ego manipulates the powerful mind.

Things simmered down after Assen in 2015. The match against Australia followed with three rounds to the finish, and this was the start of the Rossi conspiracy theory. Many people still believe in the Rossi conspiracy theory, including himself.

The Australian Grand Prix was a thrilling battle for the lead, with plenty of confusion and substitutions. However, four laps near the end, when Marquez’s pace dropped, became the focus of Rossi’s claims. These were the findings he announced just a few days later, on the Thursday of the Malaysian Grand Prix, at a pre-event press conference as a bewildered Marquez looked on.

“Mainly, I think his goal was not just to win the race, but to help Lorenzo go further and take more points from me,” he claimed. “So I think it’s clear from Phillip Island that Jorge has a new supporter in Marc. Marc could have left on his own and it would have been a different type of race, so things would change a lot.

Marquez and Lorenzo half-laughed off accusations that they conspired to deny Rossi the title at this point. Not many people who understand anything about motorcycle racing believe in Rossi’s Phillip Island conspiracy. What he saw, or what anyone who had this idea planted in his head saw, was Marquez cooling his front tire and trying to make a final push for the lead, and it was successful.

This truly was a “Cheers to Christ” moment for MotoGP. However, what those who wanted to believe saw was just a race. If anything, Marquez’s actions in Australia are even more meaningful as tire pressures are a recurring topic in MotoGP today.

If that press conference had remained as it was, the situation might not have escalated to this point. But Rossi wasn’t satisfied with just hitting the bear for the first time. He then questioned Marquez’s admiration for him from childhood, something that deeply hurt the Spaniard.

But Marquez got his revenge. After a nervous start to the Grand Prix, Rossi found himself in the line of attack for Marquez, who ignored his position in the title race to ensure the Yamaha rider reaped what he had sown. Watching Marquez overtake in a stunning scrap between the two, his Honda creating a shape that would have sent almost everyone else on the grid into the gravel trap.

read more: Inside MotoGP’s craziest weekend

The fight succeeded in unsettling Rossi, and Pedrosa and Lorenzo were seen escaping midway through. Although no title was won that day, Rossi was adamant at Sepang on Thursday that he would never be given another chance to win the title.

Rossi’s frustration boiled over on lap seven. The two ran side by side until the penultimate corner, with Marquez on the outside and Rossi on the inside. Rossi kicked Marquez out of the room and while watching the Honda rider, some contact caused Marquez to crash.

The kick, known as the ‘kick’, stunned the enthusiastic Sepang crowd into silence. Honda claims it had data to prove Rossi kicked Marquez. Even Marquez still believes it happened. To be honest, to this day it is impossible (in fact, it is defamatory) to say for sure that Marquez was kicked. At the moment when Marquez falls, Rossi’s left leg shakes, but it can be clearly seen that Marquez is also leaning on Rossi’s leg.

Rossi later admitted that he had intentionally wanted to force Marquez out of the room to stop the attack, but that it was not his purpose to cause a conflict. The stewards awarded him three penalty points, which brought his season total to four points and, under the old penalty points system, he would start at the back of the grid for the final race in Valencia.

This only strengthened the argument from Rossi’s camp and his wider fan base that he was truly the great guy. And that Dorna was also involved in everything. Unfortunately, no official global aluminum foil sales report is available for this period.

In reality, Rossi once again self-harmed. He earned his first penalty point at Misano for riding slowly in front of teammate Lorenzo in qualifying. Without that, Sepang’s penalty points would have been insignificant.

The backlash from the teams involved in the lead-up to the game against Valencia was terrible. Tensions within Yamaha were at their worst after Lorenzo tried to force Rossi out of the Sepang result. Riders had to be warned by Dorna to be more cautious when competing against the champion duo in Valencia. Fans were even reaching out to riders at the bottom of the grid to keep them out of Rossi’s way as he moved up from 26th place.

In the end, Lorenzo won the race and took the championship. Rossi fought his way to fourth place, but even without a grid penalty, he didn’t have the pace to do better. Yamaha’s low-key title celebrations alienated Lorenzo and ultimately led to him leaving the brand for Ducati in 2017. Rossi did not appear at the award ceremony, maintaining his position that the award was “stolen”. To this day, he hasn’t let it go.

MotoGP stewardship has since been completely overhauled and the FIM Stewards Committee has been established to take charge of the direction of the race. Marquez, on the other hand, has just won his seventh title, six years after his last one, after a serious injury ruled him out of five. He currently matches Rossi’s total number of career championships in all classes.

Rossi won his last Grand Prix in 2017 and retired at the end of 2021 to pursue car racing full-time.

The further we get from Sepang in 2015, the more the public’s perception of Rossi seems to change. MotoGP is always gaining new fans, and recent social media has shown a general dislike of Rossi based solely on what happened 10 years ago.

And Rossi isn’t doing himself any favors there either. Appearing on Andrea Minho’s podcast last year, he said: “Never before has a world-class rider fought in a race to make another rider lose. No one has ever done it this dirty.”

Rossi has achieved a lot in his career. Not only will his achievements on the track be forever admired, but also off the track his commitment to nurturing a new generation of Italian talent has produced players like Pecco Bagnaia and Marco Bezzecchi. In auto racing, Rossi has the real ability to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans if he can maintain his current level. And as a human being, Rossi has generally erred on the more liberal side of life.

However, his reputation continues to be irreparably damaged due to his inability to lie about his past. Rossi’s insistence on continuing to fuel this feud while Marquez makes the biggest comeback in the history of the sport only makes him look more and more like a bitter old man. And Valentino Rossi is much better than that.

Ten years after Sepang in 2015, the question that remains is how much he actually believed his claims. Was this something he honestly believed, or had his gamble backfired so spectacularly that he had no choice but to stand his ground?

It will be impossible for us to really know the answer. I don’t even know why he actually said all that in the first place. Rossi is famous for using the media to his advantage to attack his rivals, with Casey Stoner, Max Biaggi, Sete Gibernau and Jorge Lorenzo all attesting to this.

After a long period of time, there is probably only one real conclusion that can be drawn. That meant the pressure of competing for the title was on Rossi. After all, his only MotoGP title fight before 2015 was against Nicky Hayden in 2006, which he lost in a crash in Valencia.

Perhaps these conspiracy theories were claims made by the legend (then 36 years old) who was wallowing in his own disbelief, knowing that his chance to win an eighth MotoGP world title was unlikely to come again.

In any case, the further we get from October 25, 2015, the more time continues to look against Rossi. And that’s very unfortunate…