Rossi: We need to figure out what happened in Germany, Assen is a great track

If there’s ever a time for Valentino Rossi to get his 2021 and perhaps last season in MotoGP on track, it’s the Dutch TT in Assen. 

Rossi has eight premier class wins at Assen including his last MotoGP victory which came in 2017. 

However, 2021 continues to be a struggle for the nine-time world champion as he finished 14th - over 22 seconds down on race winner Marc Marquez in Germany. 

But given Rossi and Yamaha’s recent success at Assen, a return to Netherlands could be just what ‘the Doctor’ ordered, before heading into the summer break where his future is sure to be determined. 

Rossi believes he and the team need to ‘stay positive’ going into this weekend, but also understand where things went wrong at Sachsenring. 

"We need to figure out what happened in Germany and work well to make some improvements before we are back on track this weekend," added the 42 year-old.  

"Assen is a great track for me though and I like the layout a lot, it is very flowing. 

"It is somewhere I really enjoy and you always feel some great emotion when riding there. 

"So we need to stay positive, concentrate on the final round before the summer break and achieve a good result in Assen."

Rossi could be riding solo (literally) this weekend for the Petronas Yamaha team, as Franco Morbidelli has been ruled out due to a training injury. It remains to be seen whether test rider Cal Crutchlow or someone else will step-in alongside Rossi this weekend.