Rossi: I was ‘screwed’ by Marquez

In an interview with Motosprint, Rossi says he had no choice but to speak out against Marquez after Sepang 2015.

I have thought long and hard on what had happened. I also thought that perhaps it would have been better not to do it, but I had to, because I had realised that I was screwed. It would have been already difficult to beat Lorenzo in a normal situation, but when Marquez went against me, I realised I got screwed. With that press conference, more than trying to intimidate Marquez, I tried to call for the attention of race direction, in order to sort out this thing. We had tried to talk to race direction, but they didn’t listen to us, so I tried this other way. I think they underestimated the problem, because what happened is something no one had expected: I didn’t, and neither did they, so when we told them, they looked at us wondering ‘what’s behind this?’ It could have been avoided by talking together in Malaysia.

While he expects to maintain a working relationship with Lorenzo, Rossi still wonders about Marquez’s tactics.

It was completely clear what his intentions were, with the Valencia race [when Marquez finished second to Lorenzo] being the cherry on top. Anyway… it is not very important, in the sense that our relationship, after what had happened, can never be restored. We’ll have to be only rivals, but I would like us to be able to focus on that, more than on nonsense such as ‘let’s shake hands, let’s not. I prefer doing real things, that’s the way.