Following the Dutch TT race on Saturday, Valentino Rossi reviewed the performance of the GP11.1 Ducati he used during the Iveco TT Assen weekend - and gave his opinion on the clash between Simoncelli and Lorenzo.

How did you find the GP11.1? Do you think it still needs a lot of work?

"There’s still a lot to do with the bike, there are many aspects to take care of and we can’t expect results to come overnight. Unfortunately, neither my team nor I have much experience with this bike, so we always need more than what’s available. There’s always a problem getting on the track to race with an unknown setting. This morning we could have used a little more time to resolve something, but then it started to rain and the warm-up ended there. We have to try to be quicker to prepare the bike for the race."

When you talk about problems with the bike, what exactly do you mean?

“With this bike, to make one change, you have to change three things. It requires a different approach. These are problems that rarely occurs in Japanese bikes because they have more experience with this, but this isn’t to say that there aren’t people who can fix the Ducati, on the contrary, there are plenty, and many of them work with me. It’s important to do well in the qualifying session: if I had started from the second row, with the start I did today, I would have gone directly to the front.”

Could these problems also be because you have a team that are not all from Ducati?

"The choice to have my team has its pros and cons. I’ve worked with them for many years and they know me very well, and anyway, there are others in the garage who have a thorough knowledge of the Ducati.”

Regarding the incident between Simoncelli and Lorenzo – what is your opinion?

“I’m really sorry for Simoncelli, he keeps going strong and making pole, but then it always ends badly. This time I understand he didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but the left side of the tire was a still bit cool and he slipped. I heard that even Lorenzo made the comment 'these things happen'...”

When the journalists commented that Lorenzo had actually complained about the move, the Italian concluded:

"We aren’t talking about a "dirty" pass or something out of line, though we all saw the end result," said the Ducati rider. "Actually, I thought the rider who had fallen with Marco was Spies, it was only on the last lap I realized that I was wrong."