News

Rossi admits defeat and concentrates on '09

10/09/07

By David Miller

Valentino Rossi has finally admitted defeat and says that because Casey Stoner is so strong, he can forget about this year's MotoGP title, preferring to concentrate on winning it again next season.

The comments come after a disastrous race at Misano last weekend where a new, pneumatically-valved engine the muli-world champion was testing lasted just a handful of laps and he scored no points while Stoner romped to another win.

"To be honest the championship is almost out of reach for us, especially when Stoner is so strong, so we will put all our energies into holding onto our second place and winning as many races as possible, as well as thinking about continuing the development of our package for next year," said The Doctor.

"Now the aim is to have a good end to the season - we have five races left and we will be trying to win all five, even if the championship is out of our reach. I've had some good races at Estoril in the past although last year I missed out on the win by a tiny amount.

"Misano was a great, great disappointment. To not have the chance to fight and to finish after just a few laps was a terrible thing, but now we just have to put it behind us. We got back to work straight away on Monday for the test and we did some really good work with Michelin - it seems that they found some good new tyres and overall it was quite an encouraging test, much more than the last one. Hopefully we will be ready in Estoril with a package with which we can fight."

It is an astounding admission for Rossi who is usually the last man standing in any kind of points punch up but maybe he is showing his 28 years and wants to retire with bang at the end of 2009...