Valentino Rossi's Aprilia ally: "He often fell, then won everyone over"

One of the earliest aides to Valentino Rossi’s career admits he didn’t expect the future MotoGP legend to win nine world titles.

Rossi’s iconic career yielded seven premier class championships, after glory at the 250cc and 125cc levels.

Aprilia were the manufacturer who gave Rossi his big start, after Carlo Pernat became aware of his prodigious Italian rider.

Pernat, now a MotoGP paddock veteran as a rider manager, was then in charge of Aprilia’s sporting activities.

“Everyone recommended him to me, at the time all the riders wanted to come to Aprilia,” Pernat told Il Secolo.

“I went to see him and wow, he took trajectories that no other rider did, but he often fell.

“I fell in love with him, for that way of riding.

“You could see that he had a talent that the others didn’t have, even if I never believed he could win nine world championships.

“I had to insist and not a little, but I convinced the owner, since we had already won once with Max Biaggi, who was also unknown when I took him.

“Initially he didn’t know how to ride in the wet, he always fell. Then he won everyone over.”

Rossi finished ninth in his first 125cc season on an Aprilia before he started to dominate.

He won his first world title in his second year in 1997, then needed only two more years to win at 250cc.

“He was a daredevil, at the beginning,” Pernat said.

“When he started winning some grands prix, Aprilia Marketing called an American director. He spent $200 million in that period, to communicate with Valentino.

“He was a demanding director and one evening Vale called me: ‘Carlo, I can’t stand this director anymore, I don’t want to, that’s enough’.

“I told him: ‘Be patient, we spent $200 million’.

“And he had already gone to his house in Tavullia. But then he was so nice, we forgave him.”

Rossi’s first four years of grand prix racing were spent on an Aprilia, and he won two championships in two classes before joining Honda where his legend grew.

A-list Valentino Rossi fans ask for autographs

Later in his own MotoGP career, Pernat would be asked by A-list celebrities to meet Rossi.

"I met Brad Pitt (Valentino Rossi's fan), a very normal person, he came with his son,” Pernat explained.

“Another who arrived in jeans, a T-shirt, a backpack and a motorcycle: Keanu Reeves. All wonderful characters.

“I also met Pamela Anderson, although she was more disliked, and Tom Cruise.

“And try to guess who asked me for an autograph…

"We were in 1994 at Donington Park, in England. In hospitality I am approached by this person who asks me "Are you Carlo Pernat? Can I have a signature?’.

“I gave him an autograph. A photographer stopped me immediately after and said: ‘Do you know who that one is? George Harrison’.

“The Beatles singer was a great motorcycle enthusiast and I didn't recognize him. I chased him asking him for a photo. The original, autographed, is framed in my house.”