Rossi: Marquez decided to protect Lorenzo

Valentino Rossi has slammed Marc Marquez for his role in Jorge Lorenzo’s 2015 MotoGP title victory, claiming in a post-race press conference that the two-time world champion was riding ‘as a bodyguard’ for his fellow Spaniard.

Taking the unusual step of speaking to the assembled media first in Italian instead of English, Rossi spoke at length on the situation, even skipping over his impressive last to fourth race performance as he criticized the Repsol Honda rider.

“For me if you check the races of Marc Marquez in the last two years you know he always tries to overtake on the last lap. So the question is why Marc Marquez never tried to overtake Jorge Lorenzo and never tried to make one attempt on the last lap?

“I said this already on Thursday and it happened exactly as I expected. Today the race was quite embarrassing. The last lap I think was quite bad for all the sport, because something happened that never happened before. I think I played my cards in the best way but I’m very sad with this finish.”

“I think that this championship had the potential to become one of the best of the last years because of the battle with Jorge. But unfortunately at the last three races something changed. Something happened that nobody expected, first of all me but also a lot of other people. That is Marc Marquez decide to protect Lorenzo to help him win the championship.”

Rossi’s comments came after Marquez ran behind Lorenzo for the entire race distance, but never looked to make a pass on the new champion, saying afterwards that a lack of front grip meant that he didn’t feel confident to make a safe overtake.