Morbidelli "not aiming" for title despite maiden MotoGP win in San Marino GP

The Petronas SRT rider grabbed the holeshot in Sunday's Misano race from second on the grid and led factory Yamaha counterpart and mentor Valentino Rossi closely in the opening stages.

By lap 12 of 27, Morbidelli had gapped Rossi by seven tenths, with his lead extending to two seconds by the 18th tour - a 1m32.7s effort on lap 15 proving to be over half a second quicker than Rossi, and ultimately broke the factory Yamaha rider.

Morbidelli went on to win his first race by 2.2s from fellow VR46 Academy rider Francesco Bagnaia, while Rossi faded to fourth.

Now just 19 points from new championship leader Andrea Dovizioso - after his SRT team-mate Fabio Quartararo crashed out - Morbidelli admits his thoughts have not turned to a title tilt as he is "just a satellite guy" currently not occupying machine parity with the other Yamaha riders.

"I'm a satellite rider and I have no ambition...well, I am ambitious," he said.

"But I am not aiming at the championship and I'm not thinking at the championship right now.

"I'm just thinking about winning races, and doing the best result that I can every Sunday and I will see where I'll be at the end of the year.

"I'm thinking about race by race because, after all, I'm just a satellite guy."

Commenting on his race, Morbidelli said he had "pressure" from Rossi in the early stages and was hoping both wouldn't "bother" each other as they quickly pulled away from the rest of the field.

"In my opinion, the race went just fine," an understated Morbidelli said.

"I got a good start and in the beginning of the race I felt the pressure from Vale.

"I was seeing that we were pulling away, and I was just hoping to not bother each other, and that's what happened.

"And, after some laps, I saw that I was pulling away, so [that was] an even greater surprise.

"When I saw that I was pulling away, I just said to myself 'just put your rhythm on track and just try to maintain your rhythm, just do what you can'.

"Actually, what I was seeing on the dashboard was pretty impressive."

Morbidelli called the last 10 laps the "most important" of his life and was able to "think about many things" on his way to victory.

"The last 10 laps were unbelievable because I had the chance to think about many things and was a great feeling," he added.

"They were for sure the most important 10 laps of my career and my life.

"I had a lot of fun, and I just want to say thanks to all my team and to all the people that have been working with me."