Feeling bad after crash

Valentino Rossi's 2007 title aspirations took a dent on Sunday at the Sachsenring, when the Italian suffered his first non-score of the season after falling from his Fiat Yamaha.

Rossi started from sixth on the grid, slipped to ninth at turn one, then passed Shinya Nakano and Alex Barros to reach the rear of Randy de Puniet's Kawasaki by lap 3 of 30.

The Italian initially struggled to find a way around the ZX-RR rider, before making a creative lunge through a long low-speed right hander on lap five. Whilst Rossi made the pass stick, he fell just seconds later when he lost the front of his M1 as he tried to complete the turn.

"Unfortunately I made a mistake today and I want to say sorry to everyone - my team, Yamaha and of course all my fans," said a downbeat Rossi. "I lost some places at the start and had to wait a lap before I could start to push, but everything was feeling very good.

"Getting past de Puniet was hard because in the part of the track where it's best to overtake he was very fast. Finally I made my move and I made a great pass but I made a mistake and lost the front," he confirmed.

To make matters worse, Casey Stoner's late race tyre problems meant that the Italian could have gained valuable ground on the young Australian. Stoner began the event 21 points ahead of Rossi, but left Germany 32 points clear - despite limping home in fifth position, his joint worse finish of the year.

"I'm so disappointed because today our package was working very well and we missed the chance to make up a lot of points on Stoner," stated former five times MotoGP world champion Rossi. "We know from Pedrosa and Colin [Edwards'] performance that the Michelin tyres worked well until the end and I'm sad that we weren't there to fight.

"Luckily Stoner was only fifth so the points situation is not as bad as it could have been. I'm very glad we only have seven days until the next race because right now I'm feeling quite bad, but very determined for America!" he concluded, referring to next weekend's US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, the last event before the MotoGP summer break.

"It's a great disappointment with Valentino because we lost the chance to recover some points," admitted team director Davide Brivio. "However this is racing and we know that our package is working very well now and we will get the chance to try again in just one week's time. Today gives us double motivation for Laguna."