Fastest

What's gonna happen

when the red lights go out at 2:00 in the afternoon?

MotoGP race time.

In the next 45 minutes, 25 laps, 70 miles.

Wheel to wheel, side by side at 200 miles an hour.

What's gonna happen?

On a good day, the answer doesn't come until the very end.

The race is a battle to the finish line.

June 15th, 2009 was a very good day.

The Catalan Grand Prix, two laps to go.

Thirty-year-old Italian multiple MotoGP champion

Valentino Rossi,

against his 21-year-old Spanish teammate, Jorge Lorenzo.

"Teammate" is a misleading term.

They are bitter rivals in the same colors

on the same bikes.

Rossi is used to being number one.

Lorenzo wants to be.

Lorenzo has won two of the five races so far this season,

the champion only one.

Now, Rossi faces losing to Lorenzo in front of the Spaniard's home crowd

and losing another five points to him in the championship.

Victory would put Rossi level on points.

More importantly, it would put Lorenzo in his place,

at least for the time being.

A hundred thousand fans are watching the battle around the track,

millions more on TV around the world.

Here he comes, down the straight,

Jorge Lorenzo's gonna go through,

and he's gone through Valentino Rossi.

Lorenzo brakes, closes the door.

Very smart move, fairing to fairing in the chicane.

He's trying to get past. Jorge won't let him.

Final lap. Lorenzo in front, Rossi behind.

Attention, attention. They've been together all race long.

Of all those watching, nobody knows better

than Rossi's own team where his last chances to overtake are.

Faster, faster, faster here!

Go, go! More, more faster!

Rossi's best chance is in the next few corners.

From Turn 10 onwards it's all but impossible.

Haifa lap to go here at Barcelona-

Jorge's beating him hand to hand.

It's crazy, he'll be leading the championship.

Go Valentino, go! Head to head.

Lorenzo's carrying a lot of speed out of Turn 9.

There's no way through there.

Oh, mamma mia! Mamma mia! Mamma mia!

On the inside, Jorge's really got him.

Three corners to win the Catalan Grand Prix.

He said to me before this weekend,

if you go into these corners first,

you know you're gonna win the race.

Almost impossible. Very, very difficult. Lorenzo ahead, Rossi behind.

There's no room here.

When Jorge closed the door on me in Turn 9,

I say, "Fuck, I have to try in the last corner."

But I don't know if I crash.

And I hope, if I crash, we crash together. Not alone.

And from that moment, I tried to stay very, very, very close to him.

And I know I have a small chance on the last corner.

It is strange

because I thought, "Okay, if I can be the maximum fast,

"the maximum quick I can be in the last two corners,

"he can't overtake me."

I just ride to go fast,

so some part of me thought, "Okay, Valentino is going to try."

So, I didn't want to close more, because Valentino is...

He's going to try the same. So, maybe we could crash.

And another part of me thought,

"Valentino is not going to try,

"it's impossible to pass there."

The surprise was the important thing,

because also Jorge don't expect.

When we arrived to the last corner,

I said, "I have to brake a little bit later than him, but not too much."

So, when he brake, I brake a bit later, like five, six meters later,

and I try to put my bike at 180 kilometers an hour

in 35 centimeters.

And I say, "Maybe now I crash."

At the maximum braking, when I go to the apex,

I feel the front go away.

And I say, "Please, don't slide more because we crash."

But the front stayed.

The Bridgestone front tire is a great tire.

What a race. He's got one corner left. He's going for the inside.

And Rossi, he manages something in the final corner.

I don't believe it. I can't believe it.

He's done it. I can't believe it.

It's impossible. Bravo!

And we arrived on the finish line like this, but a little bit in front.

And it was a great emotion.

What a race. What a pass.

How did he do it? Rossi's done it.

Valentino Rossi is one of the most incredible riders...

I make a really good race-

The only mistake I made was in the last corner.

You always have something to learn every day in racing.

Rossi!

They come and they go.

And they go as fast as they possibly can.

For over 60 years, the fastest motorcycle racers in the world

have dreamed the same dream.

To win at the highest level.

The Grand Prix World Championship.

Most of them last a few seasons.

A rare few, a decade or more.

And some, just a few races.

Most walk away. Some do not.

Safer now than it was, but how can it ever be safe?

Wheel to wheel at 200 miles an hour on a motorcycle.

People die doing this.

But most of them live.

Really live.

Over 750 riders since 1949,

all brave, all fast,

and almost all destined to fail at the ultimate challenge.

In 60 years, only 24 riders have won the premier class world championship.

Of them, a few won multiple titles.

And at the very summit of the sport stand just two men

who have won the title more than five times each,

Giacomo Agostini, who raced in the '60s and the '70s

and took the premier class crown eight times.

And Valentino Rossi, on his way to his seventh title in 2009.

How many more races?

How many more championships can he win?

Is he the greatest of all time? Time will tell.

But for every year that you push your bike

and your body to the limit,

you push your luck to the limit, as well.

You can't be the fastest forever.

And when the red lights go out, nobody's looking back.

The past is behind you.

And there's only one question.

Who's fastest now?

I like to ride motorcycles- I enjoy a lot-

I go in the best circuit in the world

with the best bike in the world,

try to go as fast as possible.

Until I have this taste and this passion

for riding motorcycles,

why I have to stay at home?

Rossi won six of the 18 Grand Prixs in 2009,

Lorenzo, four.

Another world championship for the Italian

and a step closer for Lorenzo, who finished second.

Valentino has won a lot of world titles.

And Valentino has done a lot of things for the motorcycle sport.

So, you must have a lot of respect for him.

But for me, he is not a god.

If you work really hard,

if your technique is extremely good, then you can beat him.

As important as winning races, is not crashing out of them.

In 2009, Rossi failed to finish only once, at Indianapolis.

At the next Grand Prix in San Marino, his home race,

he mocked his stupid-ass mistake at Indy with a special helmet design

and a victory celebration to go with it.

Lorenzo crashed out of four races in 2009.

There goes up to 100 points in the championship.

You can't afford to crash, and you can't afford to get hurt.

But both are inevitable.

Where do MotoGP riders go in the winter?

Onto the dirt for fun, and they say, for fitness.

Training in motocross is very important.

For physical, for mental, it's very important.

And motocross is very fun, I like a lot motocross.

Valentino will not race motocross anymore.

I have big, big pressure from my father that say always,

"No, you don't go with motocross.

"You're stupid. It's too dangerous."

I think a lot of MotoGP riders have injury with motocross.

Because we have the mind to go fast,

but we don't have the technique.

Motocross is very dangerous for the jumps,

it's more dangerous for the bumps.

When we crash with MotoGP on the asphalt, you slide.

Sometimes in motocross in the mud, you crash and you stop.

2010, the French Grand Prix, third race of the season.

Valentino Rossi is walking wounded.

He injured his shoulder in a motocross crash in Italy

a few days after winning the first MotoGP race in Qatar.

Valentino understands with this accident

that motocross is not the right way to drive the bike.

I have a small crack to the bone, here,

but I think now the bone is okay,

because it's more than one month.

Jorge Lorenzo finished second in Qatar,

riding with a broken thumb after a pre-season crash

on a dirt bike.

He won the next race in Spain,

ahead of his compatriot and archrival, Dani Pedrosa.

Touching in the last corner and beating him in the last lap

has been 100% adrenaline.

Lorenzo then staged a post-race celebration

to rival Rossi's own theatrics.

At Le Mans, MotoGP rookie Alvaro Bautista

is also walking wounded after a motocross accident a week earlier.

When I crashed, I thought, "Okay, I broke."

I'm here because I think I can try to ride. No?

Bautista had a compound fracture of his left clavicle operated on a week ago.