Petronas Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi says his Qatar Grand Prix run-in with KTM man Brad Binder was emblematic of MotoGP’s problem with riders who “don’t care about their rival”.
Rossi had a frustrating first race for his new outfit on Sunday, slipping from fourth on the grid to an eventual 12th as he struggled badly with rear tyre grip.
But while an overall lack of pace was the main reason behind his descent, what certainly didn’t help was Rossi having to react to a Binder divebomb into Turn 1 in the fight for 12th, which forced the seven-time MotoGP champion to run wide and cost him four places.
Asked whether the battle was tougher in the mid-pack, Rossi said: “For me it doesn’t depend very much from the position, but depends very much on the different riders.
“There are a lot of riders who are more clean and ride with more respect for the opponents.
“There are some other riders, like Binder, who ride a lot more hard and don’t care about their rival.
“So, if you try to close the line, he releases the brake, and if you don’t move, he hits you out of the track. But, it’s like this.”
Binder could be seen pulling alongside Rossi on the straight before the move in question, but dropped back at the start of the braking zone before throwing his RC16 down the inside.
Asked by The Race about his move on Sunday, he said: “We got quite close in Turn 1 but there was no contact.
“I came next to him on the brakes and he kind of let go of the brakes, so I had to let go of the brakes too.
“It was a bit tight, but no contact, it was clean enough.”
The discussion of Binder’s move on Thursday was prompted by Rossi first being asked about his first 125cc podium a quarter of a century ago, and how he seemed reverential in regards to the more experienced riders they were battling, commenting “they will probably get podiums 1000 times more than me, at the moment they’re stronger than me”.
“When I was young, for me it was a bit different, the approach. compared to now,” Rossi said. “The young riders had a lot more respect for the old riders compared to now.
“But I think this was a general way of the world, not just MotoGP.
“When you were very young, 25 years ago, you needed to demonstrate a lot of respect to the oldest one – now is not exactly like this.
“But yes, in that moment I raced with the riders who had a lot of experience, like for example Kazuto Sakata, [Noboru] Ueda or [Dirk] Raudies. And when I saw them, they were like my heroes, you know?”
Asked whether he therefore felt a lack of respect from Binder last weekend, Rossi said: “Ah, no, maybe in this case the word ‘respect’ is too big. But you know, it’s difficult to understand the limit.
“In the past sometimes you touched another rider but you tried to not touch. Now, everybody… not everybody, some riders think just about their race and not others’.”
