AGV Rossi Misano ‘Donkey’ Helmet 2009
AGV Rossi Misano ‘Donkey’ Helmet 2009
Location: Misano, Italy
Date: Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th September, 2009
Race position: 1st
Valentino Rossi unveiled a new helmet design for his home GP of Misano. The specially designed helmet featured the face of the donkey from the film ‘Shrek’ positioned on the top of his helmet. Rossi had the new helmet design created as an attempt to poke fun at himself for crashing out of the Indianapolis MotoGP the week before, throwing away valuable points from his championship lead.
Rossi said:
“If anyone is wondering about my helmet – I have the donkey on it because in Italy, if you make a stupid mistake we say that you are a donkey.
“As soon as I hit the ground at Indianapolis I thought what a donkey I was. Later I thought that would make a good helmet design for my home race.
“So, I may have lost 25 points but I solved the problem of the helmet design for Misano!. I think it’s very funny.”
“Since Indianapolis, when I made that mistake, we have been so focused and concentrated and everyone deserves this result. I was the ‘flying donkey’ today!”
The Helmet:
The helmet was designed by Aldo Drudi, and is similar to Valentino’s ‘My Face’ helmet from Mugello 2008, with the exception that his face is replaced with the smiling face of the donkey from the film ‘Shrek’. The rear of the helmet features the words “The Donkey” written where normally it would say “The Doctor” (and in the same style). Above it, there is a translation of ‘The Donkey’ written in the dialect spoken in his own Romagna area: ‘El Sumer’. The helmet also features Rossi’s dogs who can be seen at the rear of the helmet, laying down wearing donkey ears.
Image Gallery of Rossi’s Donkey Helmet (Misano 2009):
