Beleagured Marco Simoncelli has admitted his disastrous pass on reigning MotoGP world champion Jorge Lorenzo on the first lap of today's Assen race was naive and he could have waited.

The Italian made a clean move underneath Lorenzo at De Strubben but a cold tyre caught him out once again and he highsided straight in front of the Spaniard, taking them both in to the gravel trap. He apologised to Lorenzo, but that will be of little comfort as the Factory Yamaha man saw Casey Stoner stretch his championship lead to 28 points - a clear race win.

“In this race you can’t put it all down to bad luck, but the truth is that I was very naive. It was the first left-hander, the asphalt was cold and, although I don’t think that I went in too hard to get past Lorenzo, I felt that I couldn’t hold back because I was third and close to the front two," said Simoncelli.

"There was time though, and I could have waited. I am unhappy to have caught Lorenzo up in my crash and can only apologise to him. The only consolation, small as it is, is that I was able to pick the bike up and finish the race and put down some good times –despite having parts and pegs missing from the bike and the back of my helmet digging in.  It is another bad experience for me and I am going to try and bear it in mind, without losing focus and motivation.”