It's certainly not Valentino Rossi's style to boast after a first day of testing, but there is no doubt that the Italian champion is more than satisfied with his performance today on the circuit of Termas de Rio Hondo, especially if we compare them to those of the first day in Qatar where his Yamaha number 46 was in a more than modest 16th position…
10th in FP1 this morning, precisely one second behind Marc Márquez after having worked hard for 20 laps on fine-tuning his bike for Sunday's race, the Doctor was fine-tuning his settings during the afternoon before improving his time by 1,4 seconds in the final minutes of FP2.
This placed him in 6th position, 0.260 seconds behind the fastest, after 21 laps in a session which brought together no less than 21 drivers in the same second: a record!
Valentino Rossi : “the day was quite good because I was always quite fast. This morning we worked well with the tires, even with used tires. We worked on the pace and we also took care of the time with new tires. At the end of FP1, I put on soft tires, which allowed me to significantly improve my lap times. In the afternoon we tried other things and at the end I attacked the clock. I'm sixth 0.2s behind the first driver, it's not a bad first day and as always there are a lot of fast drivers very close to each other. Obviously, there are still a lot of things to do before the race. We work well with the team, and I'm happy because I can ride the bike well. There are a lot of very fast drivers, and it will be important to stay very focused to be in the top-10. We need to improve our grip and try to go faster. We will see. The first impression of this Grand Prix is positive. The condition of the track is better than in the past. None of us expected it. Already during the first test session we could ride the bike reasonably well. The track is clean, so the grip is really good. The track operators have prepared the track perfectly.”
Massimo Meregalli : “The start was a little tricky today, because the drivers suffered from skating this morning, especially Maverick. We had to spend quite a bit of track time during FP1 and FP2 to resolve this issue, but we managed to get both drivers comfortable by the end of FP2, so they could fight for a place in Q2. The times are tight, and the field went down the times very quickly. This means that we must continue to push as hard as possible to achieve our goal of being at the top of the timesheets. We still have areas that we can work on to improve and, therefore, we plan to increase our pace. The choice of rear tire still needs to be finalized. We need to choose the one we prefer for racing and focus on extending the life of the tire.”
MotoGP Argentinian Grand Prix, FP2 classification:
| Pos | number | Pile | Motorcycle | Chrono | 1st gap | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | Andrea Dovizioso | Ducati | 1'39.181 | ||
| 2 | 43 | Jack Miller | Ducati | 1'39.190 | 0.009 | 0.009 |
| 3 | 12 | Maverick VIÑALES | Yamaha | 1'39.345 | 0.164 | 0.155 |
| 4 | 35 | Cal Crutchlow | Honda | 1'39.346 | 0.165 | 0.001 |
| 5 | 20 | Fabio QUARTARARO | Yamaha | 1'39.357 | 0.176 | 0.011 |
| 6 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | Yamaha | 1'39.441 | 0.260 | 0.084 |
| 7 | 42 | Alex RINS | Suzuki | 1'39.451 | 0.270 | 0.010 |
| 8 | 93 | Marc MÁRQUEZ | Honda | 1'39.497 | 0.316 | 0.046 |
| 9 | 21 | Frank MORBIDELLI | Yamaha | 1'39.503 | 0.322 | 0.006 |
| 10 | 30 | Takaaki NAKAGAMI | Honda | 1'39.629 | 0.448 | 0.126 |
| 11 | 29 | Andrea Iannone | Aprilia | 1'39.654 | 0.473 | 0.025 |
| 12 | 41 | Aleix ESPARGARÓ | Aprilia | 1'39.697 | 0.516 | 0.043 |
| 13 | 9 | Danilo PETRUCCI | Ducati | 1'39.740 | 0.559 | 0.043 |
| 14 | 63 | Francesco Bagnaia | Ducati | 1'39.799 | 0.618 | 0.059 |
| 15 | 36 | Joan Mir | Suzuki | 1'39.946 | 0.765 | 0.147 |
| 16 | 44 | Pol ESPARGARÓ | KTM | 1'39.951 | 0.770 | 0.005 |
| 17 | 5 | johann zarco | KTM | 1'39.956 | 0.775 | 0.005 |
| 18 | 17 | Karel ABRAHAM | Ducati | 1'39.995 | 0.814 | 0.039 |
| 19 | 88 | Miguel OLIVEIRA | KTM | 1'40.006 | 0.825 | 0.011 |
| 20 | 53 | Tito RABAT | Ducati | 1'40.110 | 0.929 | 0.104 |
| 21 | 99 | Jorge Lorenzo | Honda | 1'40.159 | 0.978 | 0.049 |
| 22 | 55 | Hafiz Syahrin | KTM | 1'40.752 | 1.571 | 0.593 |
