Despite his recent Ferrari F1 outings, Valentino Rossi will switch to another form of four-wheeled motorsport at the end of this season when he will test, and perhaps race, a Subaru Impreza in his Italian homeland.

Spanish sportspaper AS reports that the recently crowned seven-times motorcycling world champion will test a full WRC spec Impreza – as used by Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson in the world championship – on both asphalt and dirt, and may well enter the machine in the Rally of Monza from November 18-20.

Rossi visited the Subaru World Rally Team headquarters shortly after the British Grand Prix at Donington Park in late July – where the idea of the drive was born. The Yamaha superstar has indulged his passion for rallying for many years, but suffered the embarrassment of an early exit on his WRC debut in the 2003 Rally of Great Britain (lower pic).

"Rallying has always been a great passion of mine, after motorcycles, although my interest in rallying never gets as many headlines as my interest in Formula One," said Rossi. "I will have these tests at the end of the year and might enter a couple of events with the official Subaru, although it’ll be hard to get up to speed in such a short amount of time."

by Crash.net