Speaking to the official MotoGP website at Estoril, legendary crewchief Jeremy Burgess said:

“When Valentino makes the decision that he no longer wants to continue racing that will be the point where I will make my own decision about what I do in the future. But as long as he is competitive he certainly will continue to race, I am sure of that. I am 56 years of age, so if Valentino does four more years I will be 60 and we could make a decision then.”

If anyone in the MotoGP paddock has heard these words from Burgess, there’s going to be a lot of groaning and swearing, because the Aussie crewchief, is one of the best – maybe even the best – at what he does. The combination Rossi/Burgess, with their deep and mutual admiration of each other, are always on the top of the game and it’s more than likely that this will continue until Rossi decides to say stop to motorcycle racing.

Many MotoGP wags were already seeing Rossi retiring at the end of 2010 when the Italian rider in a recent interview with MCN said:

“For me it is also important what Jerry thinks. I don’t know if Jerry wants to continue after next year. If Jerry says to me that he wants to stop, it is another story to continue without him and it would be a big question mark and very difficult. To restart with another chief mechanic after more than ten years would be very difficult and something I would have to consider a lot.”

but Burgess has set that record straight.

It also means that if Rossi wants to continue racing and truly be the GOAT and try to beat Giacomo Agostini’s win records, (officially 122, but Agostini says they’re 123) he’ll have his ‘Jerry’ with him, and if Valentino should decide to leave Yamaha as he has been hinting at lately, any other team who wants the 8 times World Champion will have to make room for Burgess, because Rossi will never part with his crewchief and winning team and that’s not going to be cheap in these economic times. Ducati and Honda are warned.

You can read the rest of the Burgess interview at the official website here.

Continue reading: Jeremy Burgess: " When Valentino decides to retire, I'll make my decision

When Jeremy Burgess , legendary crew chief and mastermind behind the wins of World Champions Wayne Gardner, Mick Doohan and Valentino Rossi , decides to talk, everyone has the tendency to sit up and listen.

The quiet Australian has always been against the single tire rule saying that it would be bad for the championship and still continues to believe this. “To me its taking away the reason we go prototype racing, which is to improve bikes and technical partners and the engineering challenge which can make motorcycles better and safer in the future. It’s a disappointing decision given we are in prototype racing and we need a many technical contributors, so we can to differentiate ourselves from the World Superbike category.”

Burgess is also convinced that MotoGP spectacle will not improve now that everyone is on the same tires and that it will be even harder for top riders like Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa to defeat Valentino Rossi : “If I was a rider out there now I wouldn’t want to be on the same stuff as Valentino Rossi. That’s a tough call” He also added: “It was virtually a mono tyre several years ago without a regulation with Michelin in 500s and we saw some pretty uninteresting racing there with Mick (Doohan) clearing away and winning races. When it was Mick and Valentino in the past with everyone on the same brand, those guys did most of the winning, so nothing will change.”

Continue reading: Jeremy Burgess still against one tire rule

Visordown.com and Jon Urry give us this great interview with Jeremy Burgess, who speaks of his history in motorcycling, including championships won with Mick Doohan and Valentino Rossi.

Burgess is a man who always sits in the background, but like many of this type, his important role is not to be underestimated, both for the team and the riders. Below we give you some extracts from the interview, but I’ll come out and say that for me the most fascinating part in his comparison of Rossi and Doohan.

So how did you get to being a crew chief?
I used to race. I worked on all of my own race bikes and I enjoyed that side of it very much. I spent many hours tinkering in the shed at night dreaming about going faster. I think it helped me a lot to get a job at Suzuki in 1980. Suzuki knew me from when I raced in Australia and I had an RG500, and mine was always fast and ran all weekend at race meetings.

Continue reading: Interview with Jeremy Burgess: Rossi vs Doohan and championship satisfaction