Misano MotoGP Reaction: Valentino Rossi vows to fight on after Misano disaster

Valentino Rossi needs a miracle to win back the MotoGP world championship crown after he suffered a disastrous afternoon in front of his home crowd in Misano.

The Italian, roared on by massive home support, retired out fourth place on lap five when a gamble to a new pneumatic valve YZR-M1 motor spectacularly backfired.

As his army of fans watched on in stunned silence, Rossi coasted back to the pits and cut a dejected figure as he slipped a massive 85-points adrift of race winner Casey Stoner.

Stoner dominated the 28-lap race and should Rossi have another disaster in Estoril on September 16, the title will be Stoner’s with four races to spare.

Rossi vowed to continue fighting but he pretty much admitted his slim title hopes had completely disappeared as he beat a hasty retreat from the circuit.

The 28-year-old said: “At the start I felt I was lacking some temperature in my tyres and so I slipped back a little from my starting position. However apart from this I felt quite good, stable, with a good rhythm and confident that things would continue to improve as the temperature in my tyres increased.

“However on lap five, when I was braking hard, I suddenly felt something go and that was the end of my race. The engine was the same one that I used at the Brno test and also here in practice and it felt quite good; we don’t yet know what the problem was today so we will have to wait until our engineers have had time to examine the situation.

“It would have been great, and very useful, to have a good result here in Misano today. I like the track a lot and I really wanted to do well in front of all the fans; it was a great emotion for me to see so many people in yellow.

“Unfortunately this wasn’t the case today and now we know that the championship will be very, very difficult. Breaking down after just a few laps is frustrating and unlucky, especially because today we had good expectations and we had been fast during practice.

“But when bad things like this happen you have only two choices; give up or come straight back and start working again even harder than before. This is what we will do at Yamaha; me, my team, the engineers – everyone involved. We still have five races left and we will keep trying to get the result we deserve. Once again Stoner deserved to win today, so well done to him. We have a lot of work to do before Estoril.”