Valentino Rossi has admitted that he is baffled by Marc Marquez's fall down the MotoGP rankings this season.
The Spaniard eased to the title in 2014, but this term, the 22-year-old has claimed just one race win out of six grands prix.
Marquez is currently 49 points adrift of the present leader Rossi.
"The situation of Marquez is unbelievable now," Autosport quotes Rossi as saying. "Nobody expected it - that after sixth races, he'd be in fifth position, but we're speaking about Marc Marquez and a factory Honda.
"I think they have some problem now - technical, balance of the bike or something, but they can recover very very fast and come back as strong as last year. So it's not closed for sure."
The next race will be held in Barcelona on June 14.