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, aft♛er glory at the 250cc and 125cc levels.

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

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

“Everyone recomme♛nded him to me, at the time all the riders wanted to come to Aprili꧒a,” Pernat told .

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

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

“You could se🌸e 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 owneღr, since we had already won once with Max Biaggi, who was also unknown when I took him.

“Initially he didn’t knꦍow 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 domiꦇnate.

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

“He was 🍷a daredevil, at the begin🙈ning,” Pernat said.

“W𓆉hen 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 demandi🧸ng director and one evening Vale called me: ‘Carlo, I can’t stand this director anymore, I don’t want to, thatᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ’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 hﷺis legend grew.

A-list Valentino Rossi fans ask for autographs

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

"I ✅met Brad Pitt (Valentino Rossi's fan), a very normal ꦜperson, 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 𝕴met Pamela Anderson, although she was more disliked, and Tom Crui🌞se.

“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 signatur💯e?’.

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

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