Valentino Rossi hopes his fortunes improve at Montmelo after seeing his hopes of winning the Italian Grand Prix go up in smoke on Sunday.

The Movistar Yamaha rider started from pole position in his home grand prix, but was overtaken early by team-mate Jorge Lorenzo.

Rossi's attempts to stay with the championship leader looked set to produce a stunning race, only for the Italian's engine to blow with 16 laps remaining – leaving him with no points.

That allowed Lorenzo and Marc Marquez to battle it out for the race win, the former pipping his Spanish compatriot on the line in a thrilling finale.

"It's a great shame because this zero points score for the championship weighs very heavily," said Rossi, who is now 37 points behind Lorenzo. 

"Lorenzo and Marquez finished first and second, so now the distance is hard, but it's like this. The positive thing is that I was competitive over the whole weekend and I was strong. 

"I could have fought for the victory, so now we wait for the next race in Montmelo. Catalunya is one of my favourite tracks, I like to race there a lot, so I think we will have a good potential, but now we have to wait 10 days and after that we will see."