Rossi's 100 wins

I watched my recording of the Dutch TT from last weekend the other day, and Rossi had a big celebration set up for winning his 100th bike grand prix race. He had a huge banner made up of a photo of each of his victory laps, numbered (in yellow, of course) from 1 to 99. He's such a laugh, and so good at what he does. He has a lot of friends around him, which is good. Compare him with Michael Jackson, who admitted he lived a lonely life: everyone around his was paid by him to do a job, or was trying to get something out of him. Rossi still spends as much time as he can with his family, and friends from his home village: he is so much healthier mentally for it.

Why do I not dislike Rossi for winning all the time as I disliked Schumacher? Dunno. I like his sportsmanship, and acute sense of fun: although he obviously would rather win, if he's lost after a good tight battle, it seems to give him as much enjoyment. I think he'd rather fight to the end, like he did at Catalunya this year, than win by four or five seconds. To him, it's the race that counts almost as much as the win. If Schumi was involved in a close fought battle, he would often be critical of his opponent for attempting to get by him. Maybe it's because F1 GPs are won in the pitlane, so the drivers don't expect to be banging wheels, and are not accustomed to driving side by side into corners and swapping leads several times in a lap: they are just not given the opportunities to enjoy a hard-fought battle for position in that way.

Another guy dominant in his sport is Sebastian Loeb. It is only in recent seasons that he has shown any spark of humanity, of fun: yet I didn't dislike him particularly. It was nice to see the underdog (i.e. everyone else) win against him, but it wasn't personal. Now he's relaxing a bit, with nothing else to prove, he's more jokey, showing his dry sense of humour, and he's actually becoming quite likeable; although, he'll go a long way to catch up with someone like Petter Solberg or Marcus Gronholm.