Valentino Rossi's poor performance this season may have less to do with bad luck and more with what some in the superstitious MotoGP paddock call the "Camel Yellow Curse".
Camel took over as official sponsor for Rossi's Yamaha team this season, changing the team's dominant color to yellow, and since then Rossi has won only one of this season's five races and failed to complete the last two Grand Prix.
Last season it was Rossi's onetime archrival Max Biaggi who rode with the Camel yellow colors and he had such a bad year that this season he could not even find a team to ride for. This season has been apparently 'jinxed' for Rossi from the start, when he failed to win the season opener for the
first time in six years, wiping out in the first corner of the Spanish Grand Prix.
The seven times world champion immediately picked up his bike and finished the race 14th, collecting two points.
Since then he won in Qatar, placed third in Turkey and failed to finish in China and this Sunday in France, where was forced to drop out seven laps before the finish, when he was in the lead with a 5-second advantage. Despite his rash of bad luck, Rossi is by no means down or pessimistic over his prospects for the rest of the season.
"I've talked it over with the technicians and we agreed that the best strategy is for me to win the next 12 races," he joked after the French grand Prix. "Then again, last year I only won 11 races," he added, recalling his feat in 2005.
Rossi currently finds himself relegated to eighth place, 43 points behind leader Nicky Hayden and far back from a slew of top riders who have given him the toughest competition in years: Marco Melandri, who on Sunday was the first rider to win two races this year, Loris Capirossi and MotoGP newcomer Dani Pedrosa.
