PEDROSA SAYS ROSSI AND LORENZO’S MISANO SPAT OVERSHADOWED HIS 2016 WIN

Dani Pedrosa has revisited a moment from the 2016 MotoGP San Marino Grand Prix at Misano that still leaves a sour taste, insisting that the post-race spotlight should have stayed on his victory rather than on a heated exchange between his former Yamaha rivals Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo.

Pedrosa’s win in the 2016 San Marino GP was a standout performance. Starting from eighth on the grid, he worked his way through the field to take victory on home soil for the Honda rider. The race pitted him against the Yamaha duo of Rossi and Lorenzo, who had dominated qualifying: Lorenzo claimed pole for the event, edging out Rossi by 0.348 seconds, and Pedrosa was 0.991 seconds slower than Lorenzo in Q2. Even so, Pedrosa’s race pace proved decisive, allowing him to convert the charge through the pack into a win with seven laps remaining.

It was also a meaningful result in Pedrosa’s season narrative. The Misano triumph came after his previous victory at the 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix, a race that had already been overshadowed by controversy involving Rossi and Marc Marquez. Pedrosa said the pattern felt familiar: just as the Sepang incident had pulled attention away from his own success, Misano became another occasion where the focus shifted to Rossi and Lorenzo’s clash.

According to Pedrosa, the confrontation began after Rossi moved into the lead early in the race. He forced his way past Lorenzo, and Pedrosa’s charge ultimately paid off late, but Lorenzo took issue with how Rossi had barged through at Caro. Lorenzo’s frustration spilled into the post-race press conference, where Pedrosa found himself seated in the middle of the two men as their arguments escalated.

Pedrosa described the atmosphere as awkward and childish, telling DAZN: “It was a bit of an awkward moment. They wanted to have a word with each other, and I was caught in the middle. I had just won, I was really happy, and the same thing had happened to me at the Sepang race a few months earlier.” He added that the attention after his win never quite stayed where it belonged: “I’d won at Sepang, and that was all anyone was talking about. It was the same here. They looked like two children arguing at that moment. I was happy with my 25 points, but the focus always went elsewhere.”

The media-room exchange centered on Lorenzo’s view that Rossi’s overtake was too aggressive. Lorenzo said he did not want to wait until the Yamaha garage to address what he considered an “aggressive” move at Turn 14. In his assessment after the 2016 San Marino GP, Lorenzo argued that the timing and manner of Rossi’s pass were unnecessary: “If you ask this question, [about whether Rossi’s move was wrong], it’s because maybe the move is aggressive. Because if not, you don’t ask this question.” He also suggested that Rossi’s style was the reason for the approach, while implying other riders could pass more cleanly.

Rossi responded with laughter and direct disagreement. The exchange included Rossi saying “It’s not true” to Lorenzo’s claims, while Lorenzo maintained that if he did not straighten the bike after the move, there would be a crash. Lorenzo’s argument was blunt: “If I don’t put straight the bike, we crash. Maybe you don’t crash, but I crash for sure.” Rossi countered that the move was not as Lorenzo described, and the back-and-forth continued with both riders referencing their own perspectives and past battles.

Rossi challenged Lorenzo’s framing by pointing to the frequency of similar overtakes, saying, “We overtake 10 times like this. Why do you say like this? It’s not true.” Lorenzo insisted it was his opinion and that race direction might see it differently, while Rossi said he would need to check the images. The conversation ended with Lorenzo reiterating that, in his view, Rossi did not need to take the risk because he believed Rossi would pass him anyway: “For me, he didn’t need to risk overtaking. He was better today, he will pass me anyway sooner or later, but he didn’t need to be so aggressive on me, I think.”

For Pedrosa, though, the key takeaway is how that argument swallowed the moment he had earned on track. He said he was “really happy” after taking the 25 points, but the focus “always went elsewhere,” leaving him still rueful years later that a race he won from eighth became, in the public eye, as much about Rossi and Lorenzo’s dispute as it was about his performance.