Italy’s Valentino Rossi has denied kicking out at Spaniard Marc Marquez, causing his rival to crash during their intense Sepang MotoGP battle at the weekend, the penultimate round of this year’s championship.

The Malaysian weekend, round 17 of 18, began with Rossi accusing Marquez of helping title rival Jorge Lorenzo at Phillip Island the previous weekend – and ended with the Honda rider sprawled on the ground after the pair clashed while fighting furiously over third place, on lap seven of 20.

Rossi claimed that Marquez had been deliberately holding him up – mirroring his Phillip Island accusations – but this time Rossi responded by trying to block pass the Spaniard.

Rossieclared that he wanted to deliberately force Marquez wide, in order to try and breakaway from Marquez after countless passes between the pair. But instead Rossi’s leg made contact with Marquez’s handlebar, dumping the double world champion on the ground.

“I don’t want to make Marquez crash and I don’t kick him,” Rossi declared. “If you look at the images, as I did in Race Direction, frame-by-frame and you see from the helicopter. The helicopter is where you see it more because from the side it looks like I gave him a kick.

“From the helicopter if you see, in slow motion, it is quite clear that I go wide. I don’t want to say I do the normal corner – I wanted to go to him, slow down and make him lose time. Because it is the only thing that I can do, because in every braking he overtake me, slow down a lot in the corners and for me he didn’t open the throttle on the straights.

“When I slow down, slow down, slow down and I go to cut his line, we touch. He touched me with the handlebar on my left leg and it is for that reason he crashed, because he opened the handlebar on my leg and he crashed.

“But if you go slow, you see frame-by-frame that when I lose the foot on the foot-peg Marquez is already down, he has already crashed. First of all, if I want to kick him, I can kick him also 20-30 metres before because we were already close. But especially if you give a kick to a MotoGP rider he don’t crash, because the bike is heavy, has a lot of grip.

“He just touched my leg with the handlebar and he crashed. So I’m very disappointed for the three penalty points.”

Quizzed on why he looked across twice at Marquez just before the contact, Rossi replied:

“I looked at Marquez five or six times on the first laps. I look at him to say ‘what you f**king doing? Why you do this another time?’”

Rossi was handed three Penalty Points for the contact. Because Rossi already has one Penalty Point from Misano, it means he will start the Valencia title showdown with Lorenzo from last place on the grid.

Lorenzo finished second in the race, cutting Rossi’s championship lead to seven points.

Malaysian MotoGP result:

1. Dani Pedrosa ESP Repsol Honda Team (RC213V) 40m 37.691s
2. Jorge Lorenzo ESP Movistar Yamaha MotoGP (YZR-M1) 40m 41.303s
3. Valentino Rossi ITA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP (YZR-M1) 40m 51.415s
4. Bradley Smith GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 (YZR-M1) 41m 1.686s
5. Cal Crutchlow GBR LCR Honda (RC213V) 41m 6.412s
6. Danilo Petrucci ITA Octo Pramac Racing (Desmosedici GP14.2) 41m 14.063s
7. Aleix Espargaro ESP Team Suzuki Ecstar (GSX-RR) 41m 16.981s
8. Maverick Viñales ESP Team Suzuki Ecstar (GSX-RR)* 41m 17.127s
9. Pol Espargaro ESP Monster Yamaha Tech 3 (YZR-M1) 41m 20.153s
10. Stefan Bradl GER Factory Aprilia Gresini (RS-GP) 41m 22.292s
11. Scott Redding GBR Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS (RC213V) 41m 25.381s
12. Yonny Hernandez COL Octo Pramac Racing (Desmosedici GP14.2) 41m 29.803s
13. Hector Barbera ESP Avintia Racing (Desmosedici GP14 Open) 41m 30.051s
14. Toni Elias SPA Forward Racing (Forward Yamaha) 41m 31.310s
15. Alvaro Bautista ESP Factory Aprilia Gresini (RS-GP) 41m 31.322s
16. Nicky Hayden USA Aspar MotoGP Team (RC213V-RS) 41m 39.122s
17. Jack Miller AUS LCR Honda (RC213V-RS)* 41m 40.519s
18. Mike Di Meglio FRA Avintia Racing (Desmosedici GP14 Open) 41m 42.766s
19. Eugene Laverty IRL Aspar MotoGP Team (RC213V-RS)* 41m 47.568s
20. Anthony West AUS AB Motoracing (RC213V-RS) 42m 2.440s
Andrea Dovizioso ITA Ducati Team (Desmosedici GP15) DNF
Marc Marquez ESP Repsol Honda Team (RC213V) DNF
Loris Baz FRA Forward Racing (Forward Yamaha)* DNF
Andrea Iannone ITA Ducati Team (Desmosedici GP15) DNF
Damian Cudlin AUS E-Motion IodaRacing (ART) DNF

World championship standings after 17 of 18 rounds: