Hayden, Rossi calm yellow flag furore.

MotoGP title rivals Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi have played down the Italian's 'penalty escape', after overtaking under waved yellow flags during last Sunday's Australian Grand Prix.

Rossi and Hayden, now separated by a reduced 21 points heading into this weekend's Japanese Grand Prix, had battled their way back from poor starts at Phillip Island to sit seventh and eighth respectively when the moment of controversy occurred, on lap 18 of 26, as Rossi passed Casey Stoner under waved yellow flags following an incident involving Carlos Checa.

Although Stoner fought back on the exit of the corner, and arguably momentarily pulled alongside or even slightly in front of Rossi, the Yamaha star retained his position ahead of the Australian into the next turn and beyond. There is no doubt that yellow flags were being waved when Rossi overtook Stoner, but the reigning five-times world champion wasn't punished.

According to the Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix regulations: "In case of infringement of this (yellow flag) rule during the race, the rider must go back the number of positions decided by the Race Direction. The penalty will be first communicated to the team and then a board will be displayed for the rider on the finish line during a maximum of 3 laps. If the rider did not go back after the board has been presented 3 times, he will be penalized by a ride through."

The only way that a rider can escape punishment is: "If immediately after having overtaken, the rider realises that he did an infraction, he must raise his hand and let pass the rider(s) that he has overtaken. In this case, no penalty will be imposed."

Since Rossi didn't raise his hand or let Stoner back past, he should have received a 'position' penalty from Race Direction - but Race Direction, it seems, were not aware of Rossi's yellow flag pass until after the race, by which time it was too late to hand out any punishment. Hayden, having been perfectly placed to observe Rossi's illegal overtake, was reportedly left fuming - but had calmed down considerably when asked about the incident on Thursday at Motegi:

"It's last week and (time to) let it go," said the Repsol Honda rider. "Standing here kicking, screaming and pouting isn't going to do any good. The bottom line is that he (Rossi) didn't pass me under a waved yellow so I've got no reason to complain really.

"When I came around on the last couple of laps and saw that he didn't have a board out (to indicate a penalty) I knew they'd obviously missed it and that I needed to try and beat the guy on track. I put my head down and honestly tried as hard as I could. It's not like I can sit here and say ' I thought I was in front of him' or 'that I would get the position back'.

"That was last week. We're here to race this weekend. We've still got three races to go. He's a good competitor and I'm sure we'll do our best just to win on the track and let all the drama go. It's racing," he concluded.

Rossi, meanwhile, maintains that he didn't see the yellow flags and shouldn't have been punished anyway since Stoner retook him on the exit of the corner, although - once again - he should actually have let Stoner back ahead and raised his hand to avoid punishment.

"I didn't see the yellow flags in Phillip Island, but I have been unlucky with them before and I was lucky this time. Stoner retook me and I was saved by that," claimed the seven-times world champion, who was stripped of his 2003 British Grand Prix victory for passing under a yellow flag, but won the 2003 Australian Grand Prix despite a ten-second penalty for the same offence.

Rossi went on to finish third at Phillip Island after a last turn pass on Sete Gibernau, while Hayden crossed the line just 0.168secs behind Rossi, but in fifth.