Rossi And Viñales Take Fifth And Tenth On Shocking Spielberg Race Day

It was very scary. All four riders, but especially me and also Maverick, were very lucky. We have to pray to somebody tonight, because the situation was very dangerous. I think it is good to be aggressive, for sure, because everybody tries to do the maximum, but for me we don’t have to exaggerate, because we need to remember that this sport is very dangerous. You need to have respect for your rivals, especially at a track where you’re always going at 300km/h. I have already spoken with Zarco, he promised me that he didn’t do it on purpose. He went very wide in braking and he slammed the door in the face of Franco, and with this bike when you ride 300km/h you have the slipstream, so Franco didn’t have any chance to brake. I was with Maverick when we entered Turn 3, and I felt something coming towards me. I thought it was the shadow of the helicopter, because sometimes it crosses the race track, but then Franco’s bike passed me at an incredible speed, and also the bike of Zarco jumped over Maverick. So, we were very lucky, but we hope this type of incident is a lesson for riders to improve their behaviour in the future. I spoke with Franco, he is okay, he is trying not to think, but when he thinks, he too feels scared. What makes the difference on this occasion is that nobody got hurt, all riders are okay, so this changes the situation. If something bad had happened, it would have been completely different. It was difficult to restart, sincerely, but I didn’t have a lot of choice. So I restarted, and in the race I was good. I did a good race. For us, with the Yamaha, it’s not easy here. We suffer in top speed, so it’s very difficult to fight with the other bikes, but I had a good pace. Unfortunately, I had a very aggressive overtake from Binder in Turn 9 that pushed me out of the track, and we lost a lot of time and lost contact with the first group. But anyway, from that moment on I still had a good rhythm, and I could arrive in fifth place. We can do better, but it was a good race.

Today we were very lucky, this is the most important. We're good. These things can happen in races, there's always that risk. And this corner, Turn 3, we say every time that it's really dangerous. They need to do something, because it's really easy to crash there. This morning I nearly crashed in the warm-up. I locked the front and went a bit towards the walls, and that was scary. But on the bike, during the incident in the first race, I didn't see anything, honestly. I just heard the scratching sound of crashed bikes and then I felt the impact of Johann's bike hitting the wall. Then, when I looked, I saw one bike coming towards me and I covered my head and the bike jumped up. For sure we were very lucky today, someone saved us, and this is the most important. We are here and the championship is not over, because Fabio finished only two places in front of us. In Race 2, we had a big problem with the clutch. It's a shame that we lost two really good opportunities to be at the top of the championship, because I felt really strong from the beginning. It's true that in the first race our bike was quite slow, but I was waiting for lap 15 to start to push really hard. Then in the second race, after discovering the problem, I just thought my race was over. But then I stayed on the track for three-four laps, and the clutch was okay again. I just tried to be patient and overtake to get to the front. It is what it is.

Team Director

This was a very dramatic race. We’d watched a very serious accident happen in Moto2 earlier today, and the incident in Turn 3 in the MotoGP race rivalled it. These were both heart-in-the-mouth moments for all spectators, but especially for the riders. We are so thankful that all riders involved are relatively okay. Restarts are always quite tough. As a rider and as a team you have to stay focused, as if it is the first time going out on track to race. Valentino didn’t let any of it faze him, and he got down to business as usual during Race 2. Normally, fifth is a decent result, but under these circumstances it’s an incredible achievement that only top riders can manage. Viñales was both incredibly lucky and unlucky today. He was riding in sixth place, ahead of Vale, when the big crash happened, and he narrowly avoided being hit. Then in the restart he soon encountered a technical issue with the clutch that held him back, especially in the opening laps. Once he found out how to ride around the issue, he was okay and able to salvage six points for tenth place, but it was far from the race he had hoped for. It’s been a very eventful day, but we’ll take a deep breath and keep pushing. We need to have a good look at all the data, because next week we’ll have a rematch here in Spielberg.