Dear Valentino, happy birthday! 100,000 stops and 400 brake discs later

2/11/2019

 Best wishes, Valentino, for your 40th birthday! A career full of records, all achieved with Brembo braking systems

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​Dear Valentino,​ 

 

More than 25 years ago, we fell in love with your braking sensitivity and your playfulness after the finish line. You were a kid in the saddle of one of the motorbikes teens in the 1980s and 1990s could only dream of, the Cagiva Mito 125. You rode it in the Italian championships and even back then you used Brembo brakes. ​

 

​Since then, we've shared a lot on this road, or rather track, together hand in hand, or perhaps we should say hand on lever. You went from Aprilia to Honda then to Yamaha followed by Ducati and finally back to Yamaha, but you never once had eyes for any other brand of braking systems. ​​​

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Ours is an 'unstoppable love', but wherever brakes are needed, you better believe we've got you covered. Nothing and nobody has ever been able to separate us. We've shared so much, some incredible moments and some a little less so, but we've always been close, at your fingertips one might say.​

 

You have smashed through all the Motorcycle Grand Prix records, with just a handful of exceptions: 383 GP races, 89 wins in the premium class (115 overall), 232 podiums in all the classes (196 in 500cc MotoGP), over 6,000 points. These insane numbers are impossible to achieve without exceptional talent and an undying desire to improve day after day, which just happens to be our philosophy too. ​​​

 

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​We've been checking the stats and we've discovered that in the MotoGP races alone, you have used our brakes almost 100,000 times. If we add the free practice sessions, the qualifying laps and warm-ups, you took advantage of us like no other without, however, wearing down our relationship: over 400 front discs, just under 900 brake pads and more than 250 litres of brake fluid. ​​

 

Everyone changes with the passing of time, but fortunately we've changed right alongside you. Like in 1998, when you started in the 250cc class after winning the 125cc MotoGP with 11 out of 15 victories, a record that still holds, and you were one of the first to adopt the latest member of our family: the radial caliper. ​​

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From the first to the last win, always with Brembo: everything on the brakes and braking style of Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez, born under the sign of Brembo.​​​

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Today, the radial caliper equips production series bikes as well, but at the time it was a revolutionary innovation. You took it in stride straight away because you knew (and you still know) that you could always count on us. We've stopped at nothing to make you happy. You've been aware of this since the 1998 Japan MotoGP. And it's no coincidence that as early as your third 250cc race, you took your place on the podium. Since then, you've never stopped using radial calipers.​​

 

Likewise, in 2017 we were by your side helping you get back on the track just 23 days after you fractured your tibia and fibula. Our thumb master cylinder enabled us to take care of your right leg, just like we did for Mick Doohan back in the day.​​

 

Of course, there have been misunderstandings at times, like in 2004 when you overtook Sete Gibernau in a breakaway that went beyond the limits. You said: “I had to brake with my hands, my feet and my ears,” with nary a thought for us. But we didn't get heated and we forgave you. ​​​​

 

Then there was the time you won the 2004 South Africa MotoGP, your first race with Yamaha, and you fell to your knees in front of the bike. For a second we thought you were going to give us a kiss, but instead you planted your lips on the M​1 windshield. Once we got over our initial jealous bout, we knew it was how it needed to be.​

 

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To compensate for reduced limb function, Rossi used the technical solution that had been experimented on first by the Australian rider​

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You've always been a stickler for detail, which is a necessary trait for anyone who wants to win and won't settle for just placing. This explains how you were the first and are still the only rider to have earned the world champion title in five different classes: 125cc, 250cc, 500cc, 800cc and 990cc. ​​

 

Even more importantly, you can brag about your remarkable longevity in the sport: 20 years and 311 days from your first MotoGP triumph (1996 Czech Republic GP) to your most recent victory (2017 Dutch GP), but that's just for now. No other pilot in the world, including automotive champions, has had such a long string of successes with Brembo brakes.​​

 

Today, Valentino, begins a new chapter in your life.​​

 

We wish you all the best in everything you do, whether an athletic endeavour or life itself.​​

 

The best is yet to come.​​

 

Your Brembo brakes​​​

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