Scuderia
Ferrari Marlboro team principal Stefano Domenicali believes reigning six-time
MotoGP world champion
Valentino Rossi "would have been an excellent F1 driver" had he chosen to switch to four-wheels.
Domenicali was speaking after day one of Rossi's return to a Ferrari F1 car, at a special two-day test session at Mugello. The test is Rossi's fifth with Ferrari but, this time, it really does seem to be "just for fun" - both Rossi and Ferrari reflecting on what might have been, rather than what might happen.
"With a lot of work I could have become a good F1 driver,"
Reuters reports Rossi as saying, after he had set a best Thursday lap time within 1.5sec of the past Mugello best by Ferrari F1 drivers
Felipe Massa,
Kimi Raikkonen and Luca Badoer. "It is hard to say if I would have become a winner or not, but the potential was there."
Domenicali - who guided Raikkonen to the 2007
Formula One World Championship and took Massa to within one point of the 2008 crown - believes Rossi would have been "excellent".
"Vale would have been an excellent Formula One driver, but he chose a different road," Domenicali declared.
Rossi first drove a Ferrari F1 car in 2004. Further private tests followed before Rossi took part in his most 'serious' F1 outing, a multi-team test at Valencia in 2006, seen by many as the make-or-break moment for Rossi in
F1.
Driving alongside the majority of the F1 grid, Rossi finished the test twelfth and within 1.5sec of fastest man - and reigning F1 champion -
Fernando Alonso (Renault). Rossi's best lap was just 0.711secs from Ferrari legend
Michael Schumacher.
However, direct comparisons were difficult because most drivers were using the new-for-2006 2.4 litre V8 engines, while Rossi was given a 3 litre V10 engine "limited to reproduce the conditions set out in the 2006 regulations". Rossi's chassis was also of an older design, but that didn't stop speculation of an F1 switch reaching fever pitch in the weeks and months that followed.
