Let’s face it it’s off season and Italian sports journalists and fans are bored, so when they get Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali in a Q&A interview at the Bologna Motor Show, one of the questions naturally has to be that old chestnut of Valentino Rossi in Ferrari.

Apparently many have a very short memory span or refuse to relate to the fact that Rossi has already declared more than once, that by the time he stops motorcycle racing, he’ll be too old to turn to F1, but that doesn’t stop anyone asking the same old question.

“The door is always open for Rossi,” said Domenicali. “Beyond the personal relationship between Valentino and Ferrari that was born many years ago and is still continuing, but first he has the challenge of bringing the title to Ducati [it looks like someone forgot a certain Casey Stoner] I think he’s focused on that on the moment and we’re rooting for him and Ducati and then we’ll see what the future will bring.”

With the 2011 Vrooom Ferrari-Ducati event scheduled for it’s usual January date and Valentino Rossi expected to attend (he won’t be able to ski or snowboard), we can expect even more of this usual crap.

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Wrooom isn’t only a Ducati event, but it’s also Ferrari happening and Stefano Domenicali, the teams principal during his press conference announced that Valentino Rossi will be once again taking the wheel of one their Formula 1 cars for two days of testing, January 21 and 22nd.

Rossi won’t be at the Mugello or Fiorano or Valencia circuits, but will try out a Ferrari F2008 at the Barcelona Montmelo race track, where he’s never driven the car before.

Before anyone starts speculating on Rossi’s future career in F1, the reigning world champion during his visit at the Auto Expo in India clearly stated he’ll be too old for Formula 1 when he retires from motorcycle racing:

When I finish with bikes, I would consider shifting to cars – probably rallying – before I finally decide to take it easy. I know F1 would have been easier, but by the time I finish MotoGP, I will be too old for F1.”

When Rossi finishes the Ferrari test he’ll have a few more days of rest, before heading to Sepang where the MotoGP tests kick off on February 4th.

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This has to be the umpteenth story coming out of Italy about Valentino Rossi and Ferrari getting together ever since Rossi tested the red car in a number of occasions.

Rossi confessed the other week that he and Stefano Domenicali of Ferrari talked about the possibility of racing for the Maranello team as a replacement for the struggling Luca Badoer for the Italian Grand Prix.

The 8 times World Champion refused the opportunity, citing that the lack of preparation on his neck and the lack of test time on the car and his title fight for the 2009 MotoGP Championship.

“We spoke with Domenicali, but we had two big problems. The first one is the neck, because I don’t know if I would be able to finish the race with my neck. Monza is not very strong for the neck, but anyway it still needs great effort, and also, because we’re fighting for the MotoGP championship, for sure the race at Monza would be a big stress and it’s better to stay in MotoGP. We had already decided before, that to go into a Formula 1 race without testing the car is more risky than fun. It’s not possible to arrive over there and do all the work to understand the car in just three days.”

Continue reading: Valentino Rossi and Ferrari, a never ending story

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