Rossi: I hope Fenati returns

Valentino Rossi hopes Romano Fenati can return to grand prix racing in the future.

Fenati's career has gone into freefall after his mad move at Misano, when - angry at earlier clashes - he grabbed Stefan Manzi's front brake lever on the straight.

That resulted in an initial two-race ban from the FIM Stewards, which soon escalated into Fenati's dismissal from both his current Snipers team and future Forward Racing/MV Agusta squad.

Then, on Friday, the FIM announced that it was stripping Fenati of his racing license until the end of 2018, meaning an effective six-race ban, although Fenati has stated he may quit racing anyway.

"For me, maybe two races was not enough. Maybe three. Now we have six races to the end of the season… it doesn’t change a lot," Rossi said of Fenati's extended ban.

Fenati gave Rossi's VR46 team it's first grand prix victory in the Moto3 class at Le Mans in 2015, but relations deteriorated to the point where Fenati was sacked by VR46 midway through 2016.

Nonetheless, Rossi added:  "I hope that Fenati has enough strength to return in the world championship, because he's a great talent and I hope that he can continue."