Nine-time world champion Valentino Rossi has fired a warning shot at Yamaha stablemate Johann Zarco after their clash at Circuit of the Americas, saying the Frenchman needs to calm down.

Rossi and Zarco were in collision at turn three, and The Doctor was given little choice other than to run off track and re-join further up the road. But he was given a 0.3s penalty as race direction deemed he gained an advantage as cutting the corner brought him on to the back wheel of Marc Marquez and he didn’t back off to the pre-incident distance.

“For me it is not right because I have two choices. We do like this, or we touch and we crash. But I hear the penalty is for gaining advantage and 0.3 is OK, but for me the problem is not Race Direction, the problem is Zarco,” said Rossi, speaking at the track.

“He is always very fast and rides the bike very well, he has great potential, but this is not Moto2 and if you want to overtake you have to overtake in another way. He always arrives too much in the line and for me, he has to stay more quiet.”

Zarco couldn’t see anything wrong with the move as he says Rossi had lost momentum out of turn one and the Monster Yamaha rider was sizing up a move either in turn three or four.

“Because he was not so fast in corner two, because of the mistake in corner one, you need to anticipate a lot. So I said, this is the opportunity to go through at corner three. But he was able to come quite fast in corner three, and as I say, I took the decision to do it, so I did, and it was on the limit, but it was OK.

“The worst thing is that we have lost contact with the Hondas, and he was able then to catch them in the end. But for me, I lost the contact, and could not follow him any more. But I think it’s a race situation, and it can happen.”