Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi doesn't understand why he crashed in today's Phillip Island MotoGP as he did nothing different on the lap he passed Alvaro Bautista to any previous but still lost the front on the brakes into MG Corner.
The Doctor had made up serious ground on the leading pack early on, going past teammate Nicky Hayden and then passed Spaniard Bautista for fifth before sliding into the grass but he doesn't know why it happened.
"It’s a shame because I could have been fifth. It was an unfortunate crash that I wasn’t expecting. I had lost a bit in the first laps compared to Hayden and Bautista, but then I found my rhythm and I was going to get them, because I was in a better situation with my tyres," said Rossi, speaking to bikesportnews.com.
"I caught them fairly easily, and I passed Nicky. Then when I passed Bautista, unfortunately, I lost the front after passing him. I didn’t expect it at all, because it wasn’t such a violent or late braking move. You can see that well from the television.
"I had already passed Bautista in the left-hand corner, and after looking at the data, I entered exactly as I did on the previous laps. The front closed, and honestly, I don’t understand why.
"It’s a shame, especially because we have this problem with the front for a long time, and every time I try to go a bit faster, I crash. Unfortunately, we still haven’t managed to solve it. It’s a shame. We were a little unfortunate, because otherwise, we could have brought a few points home from the last two races, and instead, we got none."