
The hoards of yellow-decked fans and spectators at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli needed some distraction from the fact that home hero Valentino Rossi was labouring in the bottom half of the top ten and it came in the form of a dramatic late spill from Ducati mounted Jorge Lorenzo.
Round thirteen of nineteen in MotoGP didn't go to plan for the Spaniard – winner of his first grand prix on the blood red motorcycle at Mugello earlier this summer and usurped in his bid for a double on Italian tarmac due to a breakaway by teammate Andrea Dovizioso – after his slip while battling with Marc Marquez for second place. It was not pretty viewing either for Rossi, whose bike-related issue reflected the clunky unreliable aspect of the iconic DeLorean on his special ‘Back to the Future’ helmet paintjob rather than the amazing full-speed time machine of the feature films. “The big problem is that at the moment we don't understand why,” he mused. “We must be able to understand what happens to our bike in situations like this. I hope we can fix it very quickly, because I want to go back to doing good races.”