Valentino Rossi causes a stir with odd social media behaviour

Nine-time World Champion Valentino Rossi has caused a stir on the internet with some of his actions on social media.

In particular, Rossi, who now races in the World Endurance Championship for Team WRT as a factory BMW driver in the LMGT3 class, has unfollowed the official MotoGP account on both Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).

Rossi’s under-the-radar social media move has seemingly come after Marc Marquez – with whom Rossi had a bitter rivalry in the final years of his career – won the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello aboard a Ducati last weekend.

Marquez moved into the Ducati Lenovo Team this year to partner Francesco Bagnaia, a member of Valentino Rossi’s VR46 Riders Academy, which has coincided with a period of difficulty for the three-time World Champion who has won only once in 2025 and trails Marquez in the MotoGP riders’ standings by 110 points ahead of the Dutch TT this weekend.

A title this year for Marquez would see him equal Rossi's total of nine, while, after his Mugello win, Marquez is now 22 wins behind Rossi's overall grand prix total of 115 and the same number behind the 46-year-old's premier class win tally of 89.

Rossi’s action has also come following the confirmation of the European Commission’s approval of Liberty Media’s acquisition of Dorna, which owns the commercial rights to both MotoGP and World Superbike.

Rossi raced in the motorcycle world championship from 1996–2021, winning titles in 1997, 1999, 2001–05, 2008, and 2009; and amassing 115 grand prix victories, including 89 in the premier class.

The Italian was the final World Champion of the 500cc two-stroke era of the premier class, as well as the first victor in the four-stroke era which began in 2002.

Following his retirement in 2021, Rossi’s VR46 Racing Team stepped up to MotoGP for the first time with Ducati, despite the Italian being a brand ambassador for Yamaha.

In 2025, the team replaced Pramac as Ducati’s official satellite team, taking one factory-specification Desmosedici GP25 for Fabio Di Giannantonio for this year’s campaign.