Casey Stoner (Repsol Honda) and nine time World Champion Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team), were involved in an incident in the MotoGP race at Jerez, which took the Australian out of proceedings.

Stoner had been in second place when the Italian mounted a challenge behind him and attempted a manoeuvre going into turn one. The Ducati rider made the move past Stoner, but lost control of his bike, causing a collision which brought them both down. Rossi was able to remount his bike and continue, picking up 11 points in fifth place. Here are the thoughts of both riders after the coming together during the race in which Rossi took full responsibility for.

”We made a good start to the race, we understood the tyres weren’t the best and they were trying to spin, so we needed to back off quite a bit,” said the Repsol Honda rider. ”Rossi came up the inside and wasn’t able to stay on the bike and took me out. It was not the best day for us for sure, after such a good weekend. We’re very disappointed with this result. I believe we would have been there at the end because it was a long race with many people crashing which is why we were being quiet.”

Stoner was clearly frustrated after the incident which ended his race prematurely. After the race, Rossi went to the Honda garage to apologise to Stoner for his mistake. The Repsol Honda rider shared his feelings after the two exchanged words.

”For sure, I would prefer if Valentino did it away from the cameras and would say something to me quietly without always having to have proof,” commented Stoner. ”For sure Valentino doesn’t do this for himself, he just wants to show to everybody that he has apologised. Yes it’s a nice gesture, it’s very good, but it still doesn’t change the result today, so we’ll see what happens in the next races.”

Rossi made amends for his mistake, but insisted he was in a position to fight for the podium.

”Yes it was a crazy race because it was difficult conditions and everyone was on the limit with the softer tyres,” explained Rossi. “I was very fast in the beginning of the race in the wet, but unfortunately I made a mistake in braking and I crashed. Unfortunately, I also crashed into Stoner. I went to him to say sorry that I made a mistake. With my race today, we had the potential to try and win or finish on the podium, but at the end the result isn’t so bad. I came back to finish fifth which was important points for the championship.”