MotoGP news

Misano blow for Rossi

Valentino Rossi's hopes of a glorious homecoming to Misano ended after just five laps today, when an engine problem forced the Fiat Yamaha Team rider to retire when running strongly in fourth position. Rossi's team-mate Colin Edwards meanwhile struggled with rear grip in the later stages and was only able to bring his YZR-M1 home in his starting position of ninth. 

With thousands of passionate Italian fans looking on, Rossi started the San Marino Grand Prix from second on the grid with high hopes of an exciting podium battle with chief rival and pole-sitter Casey Stoner. He dropped one place at the start and another a few turns later as first John Hopkins and then Chris Vermeulen came through, but never got the chance to fight back as he lost power in his engine on lap five of 28 and was forced to coast home to the pits. 

"At the start I felt I was lacking some temperature in my tyres and so I slipped back a little from my starting position," said Rossi. "However apart from this I felt quite good, stable, with a good rhythm and confident that things would continue to improve as the temperature in my tyres increased. However on lap five, when I was braking hard, I suddenly felt something go and that was the end of my race. The engine was the same one that I used at the Brno test and also here in practice and it felt quite good; we don't yet know what the problem was today so we will have to wait until our engineers have had time to examine the situation."

"It would have been great, and very useful, to have a good result here in Misano today," he added. "I like the track a lot and I really wanted to do well in front of all the fans; it was a great emotion for me to see so many people in yellow. Unfortunately this wasn't the case today and now we know that the championship will be very, very difficult. Breaking down after just a few laps is frustrating and unlucky, especially because today we had good expectations and we had been fast during practice. But when bad things like this happen you have only two choices; give up or come straight back and start working again even harder than before. This is what we will do at Yamaha; me, my team, the engineers - everyone involved. We still have five races left and we will keep trying to get the result we deserve. Once again Stoner deserved to win today, so well done to him. We have a lot of work to do before Estoril."

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