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Posterity will remember his winning years Pete, particularly given there were so many of them; Eddie Lawson, who seems to have similarly miscalculated at the end of his career, isn't remembered for his Cagiva years, although that 1 win for them was quite memorable I guess.
I agree Valentino could have and probably should have retired at the end of 2009, with totally unchallenged status; nobody seriously considered Agostini his superior. He seemed to imply in 2008 that he would retire if he won again in 2009, and I still wonder if he didn't change his mind, with the whole Lorenzo imbroglio a result of that change of mind. One can only assume he needed the money after the tax thing, or that he just can't give up the life, as seems to be the case with Colin Edwards on a smaller scale. With the best will in the world I can't see him winning the 8th championship to match Ago now.
I think he was still Valentino after the injury in 2010, as the late season victory demonstrated. I have been thinking for a while though (giving away my age again) that he is something like John L Sullivan, the long time world heavyweight champion, in the old Errol Flynn boxing movie, who was wont to slam his fist down on entering a bar and proclaim "I can beat any man in the world". I am not sure Valentino believes this any more after not pushing things at Ducati for 2 years to protect life and limb. Simoncelli's death can't have helped either both in general and in terms of intimations of his own mortality.
The recently announced new crew chief puzzles me. There can perhaps be argument about the manner in which it was done, but I had thought it was a sound move to change from JB given that things obviously weren't working and JB was making public statements which suggested he had lost faith himself. However he appears to have selected another old stager, one who perhaps will give him unquestioning support, rather than a younger technical wizard who might help him in the set-up war which he and JB started to lose against Jorge and Forcada even in 2009 on the occasional week-end.
