Although also finding the lack of grip a real challenge, teammate Valentino Rossi spent most of today’s two practices one step ahead of Lorenzo. The nine-time world champion was working hard to ride round the grip issues the Movistar Yamaha riders were facing, and finished the first session of the day in ninth position, just under a second from the front. The final session of the day initially saw more of the same with the Italian pushing his M1 hard to stay in the top ten. With 25 minutes to go he had moved to ninth and looked able to hold the position until the last moments when Lorenzo’s late surge from 11th to seventh dropped him to tenth. The final combined times mean both Lorenzo and Rossi will go through to the second qualifying session tomorrow to fight for their grid positions for Sunday’s race. Rider Valentino Rossi 10th | 155.702 | 16 Laps “The bigger problem for us is the new tyre from Bridgestone that provides a lot less grip on the edge of our bike so it’s difficult. I’m just tenth which is the minimum target, to stay in the top ten. A lot of riders are on the same pace though; we are very, very close. Espargarò remains one step ahead and also with race pace he is very fast. I think on Sunday we will all use the same tyre, Open Class and Factory but he remains the favourite for the race. The target is to try to start more in front in the race because it’s very difficult to overtake so tomorrow in the qualifying I have to go faster.”
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 00:45:38 +0000
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