Randy de Puniet
In Malaysia, Rossi qualified ninth but was involved in a collision with Marco Simoncelli and Colin Edwards on the second lap of the race. Simoncelli fell while running fourth, landing in the path of Edwards and Rossi who both hit his Honda. Simoncelli's helmet also came off in the incident. The blow resulted in the Italian suffering critical injuries, where he later died in hospital. At the Valencian Community race, Rossi retired at the first corner after Álvaro Bautista fell from his bike and took down Rossi, teammate Hayden and Randy de Puniet in the process.