A rare smash from Valentino Rossi in Sunday’s Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix gave his colleague Jorge Lorenzo a chance in the title challenge, but the heroic Italian was not too unhappy about the crash at The Brickyard.

After Dani Pedrosa’s fourth lap smash, it seemed that Rossi and Lorenzo could be headed for another battle as the World Champion tried to repeat his 2008 Indianapolis victory. Unfortunately a crash from nowhere after Rossi lost the front end on lap nine gave Lorenzo the win and now the Italian hero is down to only a 25 point lead with five rounds left.

The start of those remaining events is at Misano next weekend, where Rossi also claimed victory last season headed to his sixth premier class title and possibly where he will enjoy massive support from the crowd.

Commenting on race day at Indianapolis, Rossi says, “Today is a disappointment of course. We struggled here with the setting all weekend but we made an improvement today and I got a good start and was able to stay in touch with Pedrosa. Once he fell, I knew it would be between Jorge and I, but I honestly don’t know how it would have finished, because Jorge was very fast today.”

He adds, “Obviously, it would have been better to have finished second than not to finish at all! Unfortunately I ran wide on to a dirty part of the track at turn one and lost the front. I tried to carry on but there was a problem with my throttle and it wasn’t possible. I want to congratulate Jorge for his victory and now we look forward to coming back to the front at Misano. We are still leading the championship and this is the most important thing.”