Rossi blames tyre, slams Elias.

Valentino Rossi has confirmed that a severe tyre problem caused his downfall in Sunday's Turkish Grand Prix, while some tough moves from Toni Elias left him to label the Spaniard as 'dangerous'.

Pole sitter Rossi grabbed an early lead but ran wide on the exit of the ultra-fast turn eleven, dropping him down to fifth. The former five-times world champion then battled with Gresini Honda rider Elias for much of the race, the pair making contact on several occasions as they fought their way thrillingly towards the front.

Valentino Rossi (ITA), Yamaha Factory Racing Team, Yamaha M1, 46, 2007 MotoGP World Championship,
Valentino Rossi (ITA), Yamaha Factory Racing Team, Yamaha M1, 46, 2007…
© Peter Fox

Valentino Rossi has confirmed that a severe tyre problem caused his downfall in Sunday's Turkish Grand Prix, while some tough moves from Toni Elias left him to label the Spaniard as 'dangerous'.

Pole sitter Rossi grabbed an early lead but ran wide on the exit of the ultra-fast turn eleven, dropping him down to fifth. The former five-times world champion then battled with Gresini Honda rider Elias for much of the race, the pair making contact on several occasions as they fought their way thrillingly towards the front.

"I'm quite unhappy with Elias today because I think he was quite dangerous - more than once he passed me on the inside and then altered his line. This is not a correct way to race," fumed Rossi.

But, whilst some of Elias' moves might be labelled 'over enthusiastic', they were surely no worse than - for example - Rossi's last turn pass on Sete Gibernau at the 2005 Spanish Grand Prix. On that occasion the Italian successfully dived for victory on the inside, banging fairings with the Spaniard in the process - and sending Sete spearing off into the gravel.

Most, the FIM included, considered that incident 'harsh but fair' and the limit of what was acceptable. Since neither Rossi nor Elias were forced off-track at any time during Sunday's thrilling exchanges, it is hard to call them much more than no-holds-barred racing.

Nevertheless Elias, who was clearly at fault when he took Rossi down at the start of the 2006 Spanish Grand Prix - and clearly not at fault when he beat the Italian in a thrilling photo-finish last year at Estoril - now has his card marked and can expect no-quarter from Rossi next time they are side-by-side... but then Elias, who went on to finish second, probably wouldn't expect things to be any other way.

Meanwhile, Rossi soon had much bigger problems in the form of a desperate lack of grip from his rear Michelin and he duly plummeted from second position, on lap 14 of 22, to tenth place at the chequered flag.

"We are very disappointed today because we had high expectations for this race, but instead we had some unexpected problems with the tyre and it's been a disaster for us," sighed Rossi, who also lost his championship lead to race winner Casey Stoner. "[Saturday] and this morning the same race tyre felt good but unfortunately today something happened to it after some laps and I couldn't fulfil the potential we had here. We don't know the reason yet for the problem but now Michelin are trying to understand what happened.

"I had a great start and was leading on the first lap, although I made a mistake at turn eleven when I ran wide and dropped to fifth. However at that stage my bike was working very well and I was able to fight back to second; I felt sure that I was going to have a good battle with Stoner!

"Sadly though, after ten or eleven laps, the tyre started to lose all grip and I had to slow right down because I was quite scared. It felt like there was a big problem with the tyre and I had to go very carefully just to finish. We were very unlucky today, we started first and second but Colin [Edwards] crashed when he was hit and then I had this problem," he reflected. "We're all quite sad tonight but we have many more races so we will look forward now to China."

"We'd chosen the hardest and best tyre that we had available to us but it wasn't enough to fight with our competitors today," revealed Fiat Yamaha team director Davide Brivio. "We now have to work with Michelin during [Monday's] test to understand why this happened and learn from the mistake. It was very hard for Valentino to keep going until the end in this situation but he didn't give up and took some valuable points; we're still second in the championship so let's move on from here and look forward to China."

Michelin later confirmed that Rossi had suffered a 'vibration problem' but didn't comment on the possible cause...

Rossi is now ten points behind Stoner heading to round four of the 2007 MotoGP World Championship, at Shanghai, in two weeks time.

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