Valentino Rossi has called the gap to championship leader Jorge Lorenzo 'very bad' after losing a potential victory and a handful of points through no fault of his own.
Rossi had secured pole for the Italian Grand Prix at the weekend and was locked in a battle with team-mate and eventual race winner Lorenzo during the race, before an engine failure forced the Italian to retire.
Speaking after the race, Rossi believed he had the pace to challenge for the win and close up in the standings.
"It’s always a great shame when you have a technical failure in the race, but this race even more because I was very strong all weekend," he said.
"For sure I could fight for victory. I was behind Lorenzo, but sincerely I think I had a little bit more pace compared to him, so for sure I could have attacked."
The failure now means Rossi is 37 points adrift of the championship leader with just 13 races remaining.
"Unfortunately the engine broke, I think it’s the same problem that happened to him [Lorenzo] in warm-up. We were a little bit worried, because usually [this kind of problem] doesn’t happen.
"It’s a great shame for the championship, because I scored zero and Lorenzo and Marquez arrived first and second," he added. "So now the distance to the top [of the standings] is 37 points, which is very bad, quite a big gap."
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