Rossi: ‘Marquez is playing a dirty game’
The Italian believes Marquez's ultimate plan was to ruin his Championship title chances
THE Malaysian grand prix has proved to be an eventful one after Valentino Rossi clashed with Marc Marquez, resulting in an explosive conclusion.
Tensions between Rossi and Marquez had been building since the pre-race press conference on Thursday, before reaching an explosive climax and possibly, a conclusion.
Rossi made a solid start to the race and found himself in third with title rival Jorge Lorenzo trapped behind two Ducatis. Lorenzo eventually broke free and passed Rossi, who fell into the clutches of Marquez. As predicted, the battle was fierce Rossi and Marquez passed each other multiple times, allowing Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa to escape in the distance.
On lap six the two touched through turn 14 and Marquez went down, Rossi having altered his line to try and improve his exit speed. The incident was immediately flagged for review after the race by race direction, as Marquez made allegations of Rossi intentionally attempting to kick him off the bike.
Being asked if the red mist had ascended and if in fact he did kick Marquez, Rossi replied: ‘No, Marquez knows that is not true, because it is very clear from the image, especially from the helicopter that I don’t want to make him crash.
‘I just want to make him lose time and go out of the line and slow down because also this time, a lot worse than in Australia, he make his dirty game no? When I go wide, wide, wide, I slow down, we almost stop and I look at him to say, “F**K, what the f**k are you doing?"
‘After we touch and he touched with his handlebar on the right on my leg, and I lose the foot from the foot peg, but if you look at the image from the helicopter it is clear that when I lose the foot from the footrest Marquez had already crashed.
‘So I don’t want to kick him. Also if you give a kick to a MotoGP bike, it don’t crash. It is not that you kick the bike; it is very heavy, like this, and he crash.
‘But unfortunately we touched; he wanted to turn because I go very wide and I fell his handlebar on my leg, on my thigh and I lose the leg on the foot peg. It is like this.’
After the race, both Rossi and Marquez were called in for a meeting with race direction. A decision was made to give the Italian three penalty points which add on to the one he already has, meaning Rossi now has to start from the back of the grid at Valencia.
‘For me is not fair, also because like this, Marquez win his fight!,’ said Rossi speaking about his penalty.
‘His program is okay because he made me lose the championship. Especially for me the sanction is not good because I don’t want to make him crash purposefully, I just reacted to his behaviour. I didn’t kick him and I didn’t want to make him crash.
‘But you know, you don’t say nothing in the press conference, maybe change something. But for me this is unfair; as I just want to fight for the championship with Jorge and the better man win. Like this it doesn’t happen.'
