Rossi: I've learned in my career 'never say never'

The Austrian rounds have seen the return of Dani Pedrosa and Cal Crutchlow to MotoGP competition, as a wild-card and injury replacement respectively.

Might Valentino Rossi one day do the same?

The nine time world champion announced on the eve of the first Austrian round that he will retire from MotoGP at the end of this season. But will it be a complete stop or might the #46 one day ride competitively again, either in testing or as a wild-card?

"What I've learned in my career is 'never say never'. So at this moment I'll say 'I don’t think so', because compared to Dani and Cal my problem is that I am older! But why not?" Rossi replied.

"I think that anyway I will miss riding the MotoGP bike, so maybe I can have a chance to try. For sure it's something that I will miss deeply. So why not? But at this moment we don’t have any program."

The 42-year-old added: "For me, one story is to try the MotoGP bike in a test or in some private day. Another story is to make a race like Dani or Cal, because to make a race weekend is difficult.

"But if [I did a wild-card], I would prefer some good track for me like Mugello, Misano, Barcelona or Assen I think."

The Petronas Yamaha rider was speaking after finishing the opening day of the second Red Bull Ring round 14th (+1.5s) fastest in the dry morning session, then 16th (+7.2s) on wet tyres in the afternoon.

"FP1 was not too bad because the track had a good grip and already good conditions so we could work a little bit for the race pace," Rossi said. "The feeling was quite good because I was already a lot faster compared to last week, but as always in the second race everybody is very strong from FP1. Anyway I was not so far in the position and also my pace was quite good.

"In FP2 the conditions were very particular because it rained a lot but at the same time it remained very hot. So after 20 minutes we already had a dry line. The performance and feeling with the bike at the beginning in the full wet was quite good but after in the half-half conditions we suffered very much because it's not easy, it's like we don’t use very well the rear tyre and we lose a lot in acceleration.

"So we hope, especially for Sunday, that have a full wet or full dry race."

Temporary team-mate Crutchlow, starting his second weekend in place of the injured Franco Morbidelli, was 20th and 17th fastest.