Valentino Rossi claimed he wasn't disappointed to come away with fifth in Sunday's German MotoGP, all things considered,

The Italian began the race from ninth after a wet qualifying and was locked in battle from lights to flag. Rossi reached a high of fourth in the middle stages, then lost a place to Movistar Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales.

"Usually I'm not happy with fifth place, because I want to try to fight for the podium every week. But after this weekend, the result is not so bad," shrugged Rossi, who was 14.9s behind race winner Marc Marquez. "Especially because the race was very difficult, very tough, from the beginning to the end. Always pushing to the maximum with somebody '0.0' behind.

"We were also a little bit unlucky because during practice I broke the good bike two times. Unfortunately we have just one chassis, so for the work it was a problem. I also started just in the third row, and here it is quite difficult to overtake. If I can start a little bit more in front I think that I can stay with Pedrosa and maybe fight for the podium.

"But on the other hand we were lucky it was dry for the race, because in the wet we were struggling more. And in a championship like this year, these are important points because sometimes you can have a great feeling, then in other tracks, like this weekend, you suffer more. So it's important to take good points."

Although beaten by the Tech 3 Yamaha of rookie runner-up Jonas Folger, Rossi credited the latest M1 chassis with allowing him to escape a repeat of his earlier woes in Jerez (10th) and Barcelona (8th).

"I'm happy because if we don't have the new chassis I think that today would have been like Jerez and Barcelona," The Doctor declared. "We are able to work better on the bike and especially with the new chassis we can be more competitive and had a good pace, from the beginning to the end.

"So we are on the good way. We have to try to arrive in front of the satellite [Tech 3] bike, but from the other side if you look at the championship, me and Maverick are in front of them. That means in nine races we made more points than the satellite bike."

Rossi heads into the mi-season summer break 10 points behind new title leader Marc Marquez (Honda), five points from Vinales and four from Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso. The 38-year-old's only real regret on Sunday was that he lost out to Vinales by a just 0.727s at the finish.

"It was a shame, I wanted to try to fight with Maverick, try to arrive in front of him, because it's important for the championship. But today he was faster that me. He was better way in two or three points and it's like this."

This time last year, Rossi was third in the world championship but a massive 59 points behind leader Marquez.