Marini is stepping out of the shadow of GOAT brother Rossi

There’s a simple, perfectly reasonable explanation for how VR46 Ducati rider Luca Marini began on his journey to MotoGP.

“We were lucky because at my age, a lot of families [in Italy] wanted their kids to try pocket bikes,” Marini told ESPN. “It was a period around 2000 when [MotoGP] was a very important sport in the world, and especially in Italy, because of Vale.”

The “Vale” that Marini is referring to is Valentino Rossi, a nine-time motorcycle grand prix world champion almost universally considered to be the greatest of all time. He also happens to be Marini’s half-brother.

Rossi was 18 years old when his mother had Marini. It was August of 1997, and Rossi was mere weeks away from winning the first of those nine titles.

Such was his gusto, his charisma, that his superhuman accomplishments on track yielded a surreal celebrity status off it. Rossi alluded to not being able to venture outside of his Milan home without being mobbed by adoring fans, eventually leaving Italy for a more anonymous life in London in 2000, before returning to his home country later in the decade and sharing a home with his little brother.

“He was just my brother, and I never thought about how he was famous, popular and important for our sport,” Marini said. “This is something that occurred to me as I started to arrive in the world championship. When I was at home watching the races and Monday he would come back home … I just saw my brother come back from work, this was very normal.”

Alessio “Uccio” Salucci witnessed Rossi’s duality first hand. He is Rossi’s childhood friend, his assistant and confidante, and now the team principal at Rossi’s eponymous VR46 Ducati outfit. He’s known Marini “since he was in [the womb],” and considering the enormous shadow Rossi’s legend casts, he jokes that “Luca chose the worst sport” to compete in.

First, there’s the pressure. Sharing a bloodline with the greatest rider the sport has ever seen creates an expectation to deliver on a par with the greatest rider the sport has ever seen.

“It’s impossible to make any comparisons with Vale,” Marini said. “Not just for me, for everybody: for Marc Marquez, for Alex Rins, for Pecco Bagnaia, for Fabio Quartararo. It’s impossible. It’s a completely different history, it’s a different era, different bikes. It’s a completely different…