Makes Statement

Rossi says the first part of his Czech GP was a “nightmare”:

The conditions were very different compared to this morning, this morning there was a lot more water. On the grid there was a little bit of confusion, to understand the tyre choices, [and] if somebody changed. It was a risk, but at the end we tried. Unfortunately we didn’t also put on the hard front, I wasn’t brave enough like Cal. The first laps were a nightmare, I made a mistake a lot of times and everybody overtook me from the outside and the inside. It was difficult. But from one point I understood that maybe it wouldn’t dry enough for a flag-to-flag race, and from that moment I understood that maybe my choice was better [than the soft rear]. Then Cal overtook me and I saw that he was very fast, and I knew that he had the hard, so I just tried to ride well, not make any mistakes and it was great fun, the second half.

Rossi comments on the traffic during Czech GP qualifying. Rossi was fourth after the first runs in qualifying, but was not able to improve on his second run.

I’m not happy because I have to start from the second row. It is a shame I wasn’t able to make one clear lap because we have a better potential – I think we could start from the front row. I started with the harder [front tyre] and I did already [1m]55.5[s] but I knew that I had half-a-second of margin because I could use the soft in the second exit. But unfortunately in the second exit everybody was waiting, I was stuck in the traffic. It was like staying in the centre of Rome, everybody opened the throttle and then was waiting and braking. It was a big disaster, I tried to make a lap but I was in the confusion.

Rossi says riders were not adequately informed about the Czech GP track limits. Including Rossi, seven riders had lap times cancelled in first practice for using a small section of the Brno track surface at the end of the final corner’s exit kerb, which had been deemed off limits. Infringements against eight riders were also recorded in the second session, again including Rossi, with 12 different riders, including Marc Marquez, getting penalties over the course of the day. Riders will ask for the section to be painted red, to make the limit clear.

It was not clear, simply because nobody said anything to us, Usually the track limits is that if you go over the kerb, but in this case a lot of riders had the lap cancelled because the kerb finishes but we still have some asphalt. I understood the situation in the afternoon, so I tried to stay one metre inside, because I didn’t know that after the kerb that asphalt is off of the track.

Rossi comments on his standing, going into the Czech Republisc GP:

It’s still very long because there are eight races and at this moment you can have seven riders who are very strong who can fight for the victory. It depends very much from one track to another, so we have to try to be competitive and try to always be on the top. For us it is a great shame that we already have this disadvantage compared to Marc because we did some mistakes and also we were a bit unlucky. We have a good potential but we are quite far, so at this moment for us we need to do also something extra because we have to go faster but we have always to take points. We have to take it race by race and try to do the maximum because I think from here to the end it will always be a great fight…Also the speed of the Hondas [will be a factor] with Marc but also [Dani] Pedrosa, who is very strong in Brno, so all the top guys are in good shape. It’s a great track, I like it a lot and it is the race of my first victory, which is something unforgettable.