Rossi vs Stoner. The battle continues...

THE warring MotoGP pair look set to be locking horns for the duration of the season after Valentino Rossi claimed he was blocked by Casey Stoner at Estoril.

In the latest of a series of digs between the two Rossi, who is not one to shy away from fanning the flames for the assembled press, as reported by Sportsmediaset said: “Stoner slightly blocked me again on the line and he did it on purpose, it’s not a big problem, all these spats between the riders in the end are just fun.”

The Italian has always chosen carefully the way with which he orders his rivals when listing them and he singles out Stoner again when discussing the favourites for the championship, "I would say that Lorenzo and Pedrosa have a 50 percent chance of winning the championship but it is still long and we must also consider Stoner."

Speaking after the rows at Estoril, Rossi commented that the new generation of MotoGP riders are all 'pussies' compared to his two-stroke 500GP heroes. With the complaints from Stoner on his own hard riding tactics and Jorge Lorenzo bemoaning Marco Simoncelli in the front-row press conference for pushing him at Valencia last season.

Valentino said: "It's like Wayne Rainey goes to Kevin Schwantz after Suzuka in 1991 and says, 'Ah - you are not polite!' Or Michael Doohan with Wayne Gardner in Phillip Island after the epic battle they had, 'You are a bastard.' This is the race. This what happens.

"In the past, this was normal. The riders were more like real men. Now it is more like they are children." concluded Rossi.