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Sweet Home Misano: Rossi analyses his MotoGP weekend

Misano could have been a perfect MotoGP race for hometown hero Valentino Rossi. Until lap 21 out 28 The Doctor was leading and the 100,000 spectators that packed the grandstands of the Misano World Circuit were holding their breath. A robust pass on lap 22 by Dani Pedrosa wrecked it for him and them, and continued an unprecedented stream of eight different MotoGP winners in a row.

The San Marino Grand Prix is a special race weekend for Rossi, who lives only nine miles away in Tavullia. The dedicated Sweet Home Misano AGV tells you what you need to know. “ My helmet Sweet Home Misano is an homage . Why Uccio? Why The Blues Brothers? It’s dedicated to a lifetime friend and to a movie that I know by heart. And we have the physical of the Blues Brothers!

“It’s also a tough weekend because it is always so difficult to move in the paddock due to the multitude of people, but on the track the show is unbelievable. It’s my home round, I’m among my people, my fans. In the warm-up lap, before the start, the yellow tide made me thrill. I wanted to win in front of my people, but in the end it was a party anyway. I drank the champagne from my boot as Jack Miller. I liked it so much when I saw him that I promised myself to do it if I finished first. It didn’t happen in Misano but I did it anyway. The taste of the champagne was not bad.”

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With the second place he recovered some points on Marc Marquez, but the gap to the leader is still a huge 43 points. The consolation is he moved further away from rival Jorge Lorenzo, with whom he had words in the post-race press conference.

“We had done a good work in the practices and the qualifying and I was taking the start from the front row. We did a correct tyre choice, for my style and my Yamaha. I made a good start and I tried to push from the beginning. I had a good pace and I was coping with the heat that made the race even more physically demanding.”

The victory seemed at hand...
“It was a satisfaction to have Jorge and Marc behind. Then I saw on my pit-board the name of Dani Pedrosa. He is a great rider, he had already done a very good race in Silverstone. I thought: ‘Couldn’t he wait to go fast in Aragon in two week time?’
“I had already fought with him last year in Aragon. If it was another round, I would be happy of the second place because it was a difficult race, but in Misano I aimed at winning.”

What about the championship?
“It’s the fourth race that I finished in front of Marc Marquez. I recover some points, but they are still not enough if we look at the gap that separates me from the lead. But to arrive in front of an ace like Marc is always a great satisfaction. He has an advantage of 43 points when five races remain. It’s a pity for the mistake in Assen, the engine failure in Mugello. But I don’t give up.

“This year with the Michelin every race is different. You never know how it can finish, the surprise is always there and we have seen eight different winners in the last eight races. The tyre choice has always been crucial but this year even more. With the Michelin it is important to understand already in the qualifying session which are the right tyres for that specific race.

“It is not a gamble. And there is not ‘the perfect tyre’. Each rider needs to find the best option that suits him, according to his style and his bike. In Misano, for example, we couldn’t use the soft option with our M1. I chose the medium and I did well. Dani opted for the soft: he is small and light, he knew that despite the heat he wouldn’t have stressed the tyres too much. Regarding the championship I think that the variable of the tyres and bring some more surprise.”

And the overtake on Lorenzo that provoked an argument…
“I wanted to overtake Jorge from the beginning because in Mugello I was behind him and this brought me bad luck. I don’t agree with him when he says that my pass was not clean. I wanted to tell him straight away. I don’t ride ‘unclean’, I ride like him: aggressive and robust when it is needed. What should I say about Marc and his overtaking in Silverstone? But I don’t want to do this kind of polemics, I prefer to focus on next race in Aragon.”

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