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Rossi cautious about title chances

Valentino Rossi still believes Casey Stoner's 21-point lead in the championship will be difficult to overhaul, despite having beaten the Australian in today's hard-fought MotoGP Dutch TT

The Fiat Yamaha rider came from 11th on the grid to win at Assen by overtaking Stoner with three laps to go, after the latter took the lead of the race at the start.

"Looking at the performance of Casey, 21 points is not a small gap," said Rossi.

"We especially need to improve in all the situations: in the dry, in the wet, in the cold, in the heat. I think we've worked better on the tyres with Michelin this weekend, so we hope what we've improved this weekend will continue in the next races."

Rossi says today's victory was unexpected, especially considering that Stoner was starting three rows ahead of him in second on the grid.

"Sincerely it's a surprise also from me," he commented. "I didn't expect it, because I know Stoner had a great rhythm. He was starting second and around him there were some quite slow guys in the dry, so he would have an easy life from the beginning.

"He made a good rhythm but we were able to do a little bit better. I have to thank the team. We made some modifications to the balance before and after the warm-up.

"We made these modifications yesterday morning for the afternoon but it rained. So we tried it in the warm-up and it was good, so we made another step and I was able to have a very high speed in the fast corners.

"The second very good thing is the tyres, because we work very well with Michelin this time and our tyres were good for low temperatures. We had a good tyre choice, and especially at the end my tyre worked very well and I was able to battle with Casey.

"Casey was very good from the beginning. He had a good start and was able to push from the first lap. This is one of his positive things. But at that moment I didn't care a lot because I wasn't looking for the victory: I was looking for Hofmann, Barros...

"So I see something red in front but I already have a lot of problems. But when the small point started to become bigger I said 'I'm faster'. I tried to understand with the pit board and I was able to make a lot of 37s. It was a great race which I enjoyed a lot.

"So he's fast but in the long corners I'm faster. I was able to have better speed in the corners, so when I went in front I had a good pace straight away, and he was not able to overtake me on the straight. It was perfect."

The next race will be the German Grand Prix in a fortnight's time at the Sachsenring, where Rossi won last year by starting from the same lowly grid position as today.

He said: "Sachsenring is not one of my favourite tracks but last year it was a great race for me: I started from 11th and won.

"So we'll try. I think our bike is quite good in Sachsenring. For sure Casey will be fast there, so I think it will be another hard battle."

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