The Italian finished third for the second race in succession, building on his Assen win and last week’s solid result in Germany to move up to fourth in the World Championship standings, 20 points adrift of his injured teammate Jorge Lorenzo.
Indeed, Rossi’s recent run of form has coincided with Lorenzo’s difficulties due to his broken collarbone, whilst Dani Pedrosa’s injury weakness and Cal Crutchlow’s off-colour Laguna Seca ride opened up the podium options.
“I’m so happy about this podium,” Rossi stated. “It’s more important and positive than Sachsenring because we suffered a bit with the Yamaha here. It looks like we had some disadvantage compared to the Hondas, but I had a good race with good pace and I was the first Yamaha.”
“I had a fantastic start but did not have enough pace to stay with Stefan (Bradl) and then Marc (Marquez) did a great overtake on me. Anyway, he was also too fast for me and from that moment I had a great battle with Alvaro Bautista who was very strong today.
“I tried to push and push constantly without making any mistakes. I had a big, big moment with the front where I had to pick up the bike with the elbow so I thought, ‘that is a sign’, as I didn’t crash at that point. I had some trouble with the back-markers because the blue flags were not clear, so Bautista cut the gap and we arrived at the last corner together; but I’m so happy about this, it’s a third podium in a row and I’m happy about the race and the result.”
Rossi now heads into the summer break ahead of the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix, which will signal the start of the second half of the 2013 season in mid-August.
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