MotoGP - Rossi: “I am more constant, but slower”

Last Sunday, the Italian started from fourth position on the starting grid and went back to finish twelfth, conditioned, as he said later, by the great wear suffered by the rear tire of his Yamaha .

Logically, extending the life of this compound became the first objective with a view to the second consecutive race in Losail. The data shown in the time tables for this Friday’s day lead us to think that Rossi and his team have not achieved what they were looking for.

While Jack Miller, the fastest of the day and who was also last week, improved his time by two tenths, Il Dottore lost three tenths compared to last Friday. That made him momentarily appear 14th in the table, a position that will surely make him go through Q1 , given how complicated it will be to sneak into the top ten in the third free practice, in which the heat complicates things a little more. stuff.

“It was a difficult day. We tried to reduce the wear on the rear tire and we found something, because my rhythm is more constant. But I’m also slower. In fact, I couldn’t match last week’s time, which would have gotten me into Q2. And that is a problem”, summed up Rossi , who hopes to be able to occupy one of those first two places in Q1 that give access to the final round.

The one from Tavullia was also asked about the breakdowns that affected Franco Morbidelli in the first free practice, in which his two motorcycles began to emit tremendous smoke, a circumstance that led the Roman to have to uncork the third engine of the seven available by regulation.

“I have enough problems to worry about him. But as far as I know, I don’t think it’s a big problem; I have not seen faces of too much concern”, concluded the #46 .