Source: Supplied.

Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi is back atop the MotoGP World Championship standings after finishing second at Circuit of the Americas in Texas last Sunday, continuing his perfect podium record in 2017.

Rossi finished third in Qatar’s opener and runner-up in both Argentina and the US, now leading the title-race by six points over teammate Maverick Viñales despite being winless to date this year.

“It was a great surprise for me and for the team because we were struggling very much with the new bike, especially during the winter,” Rossi reflected. “I think we need more time to understand the setting and the way to ride it, but at the end this bike is very good, especially in the race and with the used tyres.

“I’m so happy, because today I wasn’t so far from the front and it’s also the best result of my career at this track, so it’s good. When I saw Viñales out, I started to think ‘I’m on top of the championship standings’. I felt good and I also saw Dani having some problems, especially on the right, so I said ‘maybe those four points are important’ and in fact it was like that.”

Rossi was slapped with a 0.3s penalty by race direction for going off-track in an incident involving Monster Yamaha Tech3 rookie Johann Zarco: “For me the penalty wasn’t right. The problem is we either do it like this, or we crash together at a very dangerous point. But for me, though accepting race direction’s decision, the mistake was made by Zarco.”