How Rossi's mind games backfired

When Valentino Rossi tried to 'unmask' Marc Marquez for interfering in the MotoGP title battle between Rossi and his Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, there were two schools of thought.

In many quarters, Rossi's surprising barb ahead of the Malaysian Grand Prix was lauded as a masterstroke - the wily veteran waging tactical warfare on the upstart (already a two-time MotoGP champion, remember) he has had on-track run-ins with through the year, almost always coming out on top, it must be said. But there was another side to this coin, one that was dismissed in the run-up to the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Was it in fact Marquez that was winning the war of the mind? Looked at from that perspective, Rossi's comments about the Honda rider's behaviour at Phillip Island paint a different picture.

So much has happened in the two weeks since the Australian GP that it's easy to forget how this all started, with Rossi believing Marquez was "playing" with him at Phillip Island to allow more riders to attack the Italian, before disappearing up the road to steal victory from Jorge Lorenzo on the final lap.

As was pointed out by Lorenzo moments after Rossi made his claims, if Marquez really wanted to help his fellow Spaniard win the 2015 title, perhaps he could have stayed behind him rather than snatching victory with three corners to go.

Marquez incurred Rossi's ire at Phillip Island

Fast forward four days to that press conference in Malaysia, and was Rossi's outburst in fact the first sign of him creaking under the pressure of trying to fend off a charging Lorenzo in the quest for his first world title since 2009?

At that point, there was no way of telling how sour this rivalry would turn in the days that followed. A jovial Rossi made his claims with a smile on his face, and in fact the words he used looked worse written down afterwards than they sounded when he said them. In the correct context, it seemed little more than a friendly 'I'm onto you' directed at Marquez, and hardly a precursor to what was to come.

This all plays into the Rossi mind games theory. But perhaps where Rossi underestimated his foe was to assume Marquez's youth meant he would lack the type of steel that characterises a world champion. If so, this was a major tactical error.

Yes, Marquez is only 22, but he's never been shy on the bike, and with two top-class world titles already to his name, he is unlikely to be fazed even when called out by someone with the legendary presence of Rossi.

Whereas the late Marco Simoncelli initially went into his shell after repeatedly taking a barrage of criticism from high-profile rivals for his riding style, the calibre of Marquez's CV means he is by no means obliged to wilt in the face of psychological tricks. Sure enough, when Rossi first brought up the subject in Malaysia, Marquez simply burst into laughter.

Marquez and Lorenzo fired their shots back, the latter's doused in sarcasm, but at this stage it still seemed like nothing more than a good-natured war of words, perhaps with a slightly more serious undertone. There's no harm in a bit of fun for people to get their teeth into until the track action begins.

Marquez comes across as a 'smiling assassin'

But if it was supposed to be Rossi who came out of the exchange with the upper hand, the events of the race suggested that wasn't the case.

Let's assume for the moment that Marquez did want to 'play' with Rossi and interfere with the championship fight. If that was in his mind heading to Malaysia, then Rossi's comments presented him with an open goal.

And even if Marquez's actions in Australia were innocent, once his motives have been publicly questioned in the way they were by Rossi, it would be foolhardy to think he would decide to back away and let the Yamaha riders get on with their championship fight while he sat back and gave up his own chances of results.

What followed at Sepang started out as what sport at the highest level is meant to be all about. Two titans went wheel-to-wheel, elbow-to-elbow for corner after corner. Even without the backstory it was brilliant.

The shame is that it couldn't end on the same note. Had the battle been resolved without a crash, we'd have had some soundbites to chew over from both protagonists afterwards, and there's every chance we'd be heading to Valencia for the season finale still with plenty of intrigue over the way the 2015 season would conclude.

But Rossi felt Marquez was upping the stakes with every pass in Malaysia. Yes, moves such as the way he flicked his bike to the right at Turn 10 while they were side by side were on the limit in terms of what's allowed, but Marquez was surely playing up to this. He knew he didn't need to take Rossi out to get under his skin, and his body language on the bike as their fight continued suggested he was revelling in it.

When Rossi nearly fell at Turn 11 moments after that move, he looked across at Marquez in a preview of what was to come when they would finally collide. Marquez chopped across him - again just about fairly - into the next corner, and his face must have lit up under the visor. If Rossi's comments before the weekend suggested he was rattled, his actions in those few corners surely confirmed it.

Marquez kept fighting back at Sepang

Less than a lap later Rossi put a rude move of his own on Marquez into Turn 7, nearly fell for the second time at Turn 8, and again he looked round at Marquez, this time gesticulating with his left hand. Just over a lap later, Marquez would be on the ground.

After Rossi picked up the penalty that resulted in him being put to the back of the grid for Valencia, he declared "like this, Marquez wins his fight - he made me lose the championship". He even said he preferred his "obnoxious" rivalry with nemesis Max Biaggi, because "at least it was clear and honest".

But perhaps the nature of the Biaggi rivalry was a prime reason - along with his talent - that Rossi came out on top in that feud. Neither he nor Biaggi could really keep their emotions in check when that rivalry was at its most severe, whereas up to now Marquez has played the smiling assassin (in Rossi's eyes) to perfection.

On track, Rossi and Marquez both gave as good as they got, but the difference was one of them had something bigger riding on it. Rossi has a championship to win, and for the first time in his top-class career, Marquez has nothing to play for. Until Rossi gave him some extra motivation, that is.

But even if you don't agree with Rossi's take on recent weeks, we should welcome the fact that a major star was prepared to speak his mind in this PR-driven world we live in. Few would have the guts to call out a rival like that in the first place, and to be honest enough afterwards to admit saying "Fuck, what the fuck are you doing?!" moments before their collision.

Rossi's Sepang podium still stood

The rivalry has captured the interest of motorsport fans (in the seven days following Sepang, stories on the subject represented eight of the 10 most-popular articles on Autosport.com) and the wider public, and handed MotoGP exposure by the truckload heading into its season finale.

The anticipation is huge ahead of Valencia this weekend, which is why it's a shame that after MotoGP initially seemed to be doing all it could to play up the Rossi/Marquez rivalry (with clever use of '#SepangClash' on social media and more than 6million YouTube hits on the official video of the incident at the time of writing), governing body the FIM felt the need to step in. First, its president Vito Ippolito described the war as "poison", and he warned of "anarchy" if things didn't calm down.

Yes, there is an understandable safety aspect here, and it was fortunate the Rossi/Marquez clash was at low-speed. With that in mind, holding an extraordinary meeting with all riders and teams on Thursday makes sense. But cancelling the pre-event press conference, effectively trying to gag the main players in the public eye, is a step too far and misses the point.

These riders are professionals, the best in the business, and Rossi would hardly have pulled the stunt he did - regardless of if he intended to collide with Marquez - in one of Sepang's faster corners. Plus, FIM stewards have admitted there was nothing wrong with Rossi's or Marquez's aggressive riding in the laps before their collision. Up to that point, their battle had been enthralling for all the right reasons, and who's to say we won't get more of the same without the unpleasant conclusion at Valencia?

As mentioned earlier, before this most explosive of chapters was written in the Rossi/Marquez story, the 2015 flashpoints had fallen in Rossi's favour. Marquez fell when they clashed in Argentina, and Rossi's short-cut of the final chicane at Assen allowed him to hang onto victory when they came to blows in the Dutch TT.

Rossi believes those incidents have played a part in Marquez's behaviour, but in trying to strike a definitive blow to end the saga in his favour by calling Marquez out after the Phillip Island race, all he really did was hand the initiative to the man with nothing to lose.