Thailand: Rossi on 'the edge': Same story, a shame

After a fall in qualifying, Valentino Rossi climbed from ninth to sixth early in Sun🔥day's Thai MotoGP.

But the Italian's progress then suddenly plateaued, followed by a decline to 𝔉eighth - after being overtaken by the Suzukis of Alex Rins and Joan Mir - where he would ultimately fin♒ish.

As so often this season Rossi was hit by a loss of rear grip, this time leaving him last of the Yamaha riders, 🐲19-seconds behind Petronas runner-up Fabio Quartararo.

Rossi on 'the edge': Same story, a shame

After a fall in qualifying, Valentino Rossi climbed from ninth to sixth early in Sunday's Th🌱ai MotoGP.

But the Italian's progress then suddenly plateaue꧂d, followed by a decline to eighth - after being overtaken by the Suzukis of Alex Rins and Joan Mir - where he would ul🌱timately finish.

As so often this season Rossi was hit by a loss🦋 of rear grip, this time leaving him last of the Yamaha riders, 19-seconds behind Petronas runner-up 🌃Fabio Quartararo.

"Unfortunately, the race was very similar to the last races. After some laps, very early, I staౠrt to suffer wit🍌h rear grip" Rossi said. "I lose grip, lose performance and I have to slow down. It was another difficult race."

Rossi was especially disappointed after being able to hold a competit🗹ive pace on used tyres in morning wa𝔉rm-up.

"It is a shame more because this morning with the used tyre after 19 laps I did some good lap times, so I expected to do a quite good race," he said. "But unfortunately with the same tyre, b𝕴ut new, in the race we suffer.

"More-or-less it's always the sa▨me. In the last races we have always that type o𒁏f problem."

The current pattern o๊f fading in the race is the opposite of what has been expected from Rossi for much of his record-breaking career, when he would often pull-out his best form of the weekend.

"Every time I am🌊 on the edge of the tyre I suffer very much," Rossi explained. "Silverstone wa♚s good but anyway also in qualifying it's not fantastic, but especially in the race we suffer.

"But anyway, we have another fไour races, we made a long meeting here and we will try something next time in Japan to be more competitive to the end of the season.

"We have something to do because today sincerely the first three were𓄧 faster, but in the warm-up I was good with the used tyre. So I thought tha🎃t for example I can fight for fourth with Dovi and Rins. But unfortunately not."

Rossi remains sixth in the world championship, but has now slipp♊ed 18 points behind team-mate Maverick Vinales (third at Buriram) an♓d is just two ahead of rookie Quartararo.

Asked about how important the young Frenchman is to Yamaha's future, after battling Marc Marquez to the final corner of the race, Rossi said:&n🏅bsp;

"Yes very important. I expect that he can be very fast because he was always very fast from when he was young. But no💯body expected like this, so he did something special and it's gre🍌at and I think [in 2021] everybody will try to get Quartararo on their bike.

"And for sure Yamaha will want ꦇ;Quartararo, yes."

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