Valentino Rossi launches new tirade against Marc Marquez as fresh details emerge

Just over three years have passed since Valentino Rossi formally confirmed to the world’s media that he would be bringing his distinguished motorcycle racing career to an end at the conclusion of the 2021 MotoGP World Championship season.

And yet, despite ‘the Doctor’ having since gone on to keep himself busy competing on four-wheels at GT level, flash points from Rossi’s extraordinary Grand Prix career continue to generate discussion and debate even today.

Indeed, while Rossi was never too far from controversy at his peak, it is his notorious incident with Marc Marquez during the 2015 Malaysian MotoGP weekend that continues to stand as arguably the most contentious and divisive.

It’s a topic the two arch rivals have continued to comment on in the years since the fracas, which began with Rossi and Marquez squaring up to one another in the pre-event press conference and led to the Italian accusing his rival of going out of his way to help Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo in their title battle.

"In Malaysia, I went against him [Marquez] at the press conference because I wanted to try to dishonour him, to tell everyone what he was doing, so that, maybe, he would let it go,” Rossi is reported as saying by Spanish publication Marca, via an interview he gave to ‘Mig Babol’, a podcast hosted by ex-Moto3 rider and friend Andre Migno.

“In addition, because it no longer had anything to do with it, Lorenzo and I were playing for the world title.

“If you're fighting for the title, maybe you understand. But if you have nothing to do with each other, you are not even a partner of one of the two, you have to have respect so as not to break the balls of the others.

“You just have to do your race, try to win and that's it. Who makes you do something like this? But in Sepang it hurt me and bothered me throughout the race."

With heightened tensions off track spilling out onto the track - triggering their infamous collision and the penalty that scuppered the Italian’s hopes of winning the 2015 MotoGP title - Rossi goes on to give a detailed and fiery account of how controversy continued to play out away from the cameras in the hours and days after the event

"He tried to make me fall three or four times and, fortunately, I didn't fall. I got really close to him and looked at him to say, 'Enough, what are you doing?' Only then we touched. I didn’t want to knock him down, but he fell.

Contributing to Rossi missing out on his shot of an eighth 500GP/MotoGP riders’ title, the former Honda, Ducati and Yamaha rider admits to retaining bitterness about the incident as he goes into detail about how the controversy played out behind-the-scenes.

“It made me lose the championship, also because then they made me start last in Valencia.

"After the race, they called me to the Race Direction. I was with Massimo Meregalli from Yamaha and Marquez was with his manager Emilio Alzamora. 

"Alzamora started insulting me, I asked him why he was there if he wasn't from Honda. There was a bit of a half-scuffle. In the end, Mike Webb (race director) announced that I would start last in Valencia, something that has never happened in MotoGP.

“According to the rules, I should have had a ride through in Sepang. Instead of third I would have finished fifth.

“If they thought I had knocked Marquez down on purpose, they should have forced me to do it, but they didn't and they made up for me to start from last place in Valencia. They cut off my legs and I lost the championship.

“Marquez was there with his head down. I told him that he would carry this forward throughout his career, because it is disgusting for the sport to make someone else lose.

“The moment Mike Webb said I should start last in Valencia, my blood ran cold because I knew I had lost the title. But my first reaction was to look at Marquez, who looked up and looked at Alzamora as if to say: 'We have done it'."