Valentino Rossi says he was disappointed with the size of his deficit to Argentina race-winner Marc Marquez, despite the Yamaha rider scoring his best MotoGP finish since last July.
Rossi came out on top in a last-lap duel against Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso at the Termas de Rio Hondo to finish second, just under 10 seconds behind Marquez.
Rossi had claimed he was riding “like when he was young”, but was disappointed not to offer a sterner challenge to Marquez.
“I am happy to be third in the championship behind Marquez and Dovi, who are the favourites,” said the 40-year-old, who lies 14 points adrift of Marquez in the championship standings.
“But I think we must take things race-by-race.
“There’s a good group in Yamaha and we are working hard, but the challenge is very difficult. The two of them surely remain the favourites, so we must try to work to be competitive and fight.
“And maybe stay closer to Marquez, because to finish 10 seconds down is huge.
“I would have preferred to be only three seconds behind and see him sometimes.”
Third-place finisher Dovizioso highlighted that Marquez could have been even more dominant in 2018 without the dramas that destroyed his race in Argentina last year.
“The distance [to Marquez] today is very important because Marquez put 10 seconds over us, but also it could have been more,” said the Ducati rider.
“Last year he could have beaten us by more, so I don’t want to view it as more worrying than usual.
“The problem today is that he managed to maintain a good pace, while we all went slower.
“There were no possibilities [to challenge Marquez].”
Dovizioso added that he had given up on trying to overtake Rossi on the last lap of the race because he was afraid that he would crash out.
The Ducati rider held second for the majority of the Termas de Rio Hondo race but had to concede that position to Rossi after the Yamaha man passed him at Turn 7.
Rossi’s move at the right-hander was aggressive and Dovizioso entered the corner slightly wide, opening up the possibility of a cutback as a counter-attack.
Riders complained about the dirtiness of the track off the racing line throughout the weekend and Dovizioso said that he was “scared to crash” off-line.
“When he overtook me I was really scared to crash because in that part of the track the grip was zero,” said Dovizioso.
“I didn’t make crazy things. To [potentially] lose 16 points in the last lap, it wasn’t a good idea.
“I am not too happy with the way the tyre worked during the race because my speed was not good enough, apart from Marc, I couldn’t make a gap to Valentino and that is the bad point.
“I couldn’t be fast like I wanted [to be] in the last 10 laps, to create a gap to Vale.
“Vale was able to study my way to ride very well and created the overtaking [chance] on the last lap. I couldn’t answer.”