Yamaha MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi says the knowledge that the Suzukis were likely to mount a late-race challenge at Barcelona contributed to him “maybe pushing too much” and crashing.
Having qualified on the front row for the first time this year, Rossi headed into the race as one of the favourites for what would’ve been a first victory since 2017, and initially lived up to that status.
He was second at the start and though he then let eventual race winner Fabio Quartararo get ahead, he followed close behind the two Petronas SRT Yamaha bikes of Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli when the latter had a major moment at Turn 1 and dropped out of victory contention.
With only Quartararo ahead of him and less than a second separating the two of them, Rossi sought to pick up the pace and challenge the leader, only to crash out at the Turn 2 left-hander, suffering his second retirement in two races.
Rossi explained he had “on the left [side] less temperature on the front tyre” and said he looked to pick up the pace because “I knew that the bikes that are usually faster at the end of the race, like Suzuki and Ducati, were not too far [behind]”.
“We [the three Yamahas] started very, very smooth at the beginning, we had a good pace but I tried to ride very sweet from the front tyre and the rear tyre because I knew, like everybody, that at the end of the race we would suffer [on worn tyres].
“But anyway we had a very good pace and we stayed in the front, but I didn’t push too much there.
“After Franco did a mistake at Turn 1, from that moment I pushed because I didn’t want to be at too much disadvantage from Fabio, I wanted to stay close to him, because I knew that especially Suzuki at the end are very strong. But I did a mistake.
“Looking at the data, it’s really, really, really similar to the lap before, but with this temperature I needed to pay more attention on the left.”
Quartararo won the race by just nine tenths of second from Suzuki rider Joan Mir, who had charged from eighth on the grid – while Mir’s team-mate Alex Rins completed the podium after starting 13th.
Having gone “way too fast” early on, Quartararo confirmed he was still pushing at his maximum in the end despite his lap times cratering, quipping that “two more laps, and I finish in the lap time of the Moto3 guys”. Both he and Mir seemed in agreement that the race would’ve swung in Mir’s favour had it been a lap longer.
Asked whether he too could’ve benefited from Quartararo’s pace drop-off and potentially won the race, Rossi said: “Maybe Fabio was a little bit better [in the first part of the race], but from that moment the tyre went down a lot, and also Quartararo lost very much in the last laps.
“So, we never know, because I crashed, but if I was able to slow down less, because maybe I was a bit better in the last laps, I could also win. But I was pushing [too].”
The crash leaves Rossi 11th in the world championship standings, 50 points behind leader Quartararo with six races left to run.
“It was a great, great shame because we needed a podium after a weekend like this,” Rossi added.
