John Surtees the only man to win world championships on both two wheels and four has suggested the opportunity for
Valentino Rossi to make the switch over to
Formula 1 has now passed.
The Italian a four-time
MotoGP Champion and a man with a staggering seven Grand Prix World Championship crowns to his name since 1997 has toyed with the idea of crossing over to four wheels in the future, and even went so far as to try out with Ferrari on a number of occasions.
Though he got to within just over half a second of German legend
Michael Schumacher at Valencia in early 2006, Surtees believes the 29-year-old nicknamed The Doctor' is now more likely to switch to rally driving rather than single-seaters should he elect to change disciplines in the years to come.
I would have liked to have seen it happen, admitted the 73-year-old British racing hero who lifted the
F1 laurels for Ferrari in 1964 after having clinched no fewer than seven motorcycling world titles over a five-year period from 1956 to 1960 in an interview with Spanish newspaper
Marca.
He thought about it for real but in the end he didn't want to. Now, after he wins another championship, I think he will go to rallying.
He had his big chance to go to F1 with
Ferrari, but he decided to stay in motorcycles.
Rossi first officially tried his hand at professional rallying with a foray on the British event of the World Rally Championship calendar in late 2002, crashing out early on. He has since competed on a number of further rallies, finishing an impressive eleventh outright on Rally New Zealand in 2006 and triumphing on the annual Monza Rally just a week later, winning five of the seven stages
en route before repeating his success the following year.
The Yamaha ace has in the past hinted that he intends hanging up his motorcycle helmet no later than the age of 31 or 32.
