And one more day in MotoGP which takes Valentino Rossi a little further away from retirement! The latter has set itself the objective of remaining in the category on the sole condition of proving itself worthy of it through results that are always at the forefront. And this Saturday day in Qatar was one of those that tipped the scales in the right direction…
Valentino Rossi had a positive day on Saturday Qatar, whose Losail track welcomes the MotoGP protagonists for three days of testing. Even if the leader is now Casa Particular in Viñales and that the succession Quarterly will push him out of the official box Yamaha at the end of the year, the Doctor doesn't give up. Here he is seventh, four tenths behind the leader Kidneys on a Suzuki which still achieved the double… “ It was a fairly positive first day, because I was quite fast, even on a timed lap. But above all I felt good with the bike. It seems we are faster than last year. »
« On the fast lap and on the pace, I'm missing something, especially on Viñales » concedes Vale. “ But here we are in the first group. I'm still missing something, especially when braking, but we'll try to improve. The new things had all arrived in Malaysia, so here we have the same parts. Let's say that this is the bike with which we will do the first part of the championship, I think until Barcelona. However, the feeling is positive. I'm doing pretty well. A few tenths are missing, but it's only the first day. »
The teammate of Casa Particular in Viñales, third, finishes: “ it will be very important to understand if we can keep the pace in the race, because a small deficit still exists in top speed, even if it is better than last year. The difference was then very big. Staying on track would be very important, but we won't understand that until March 8th. » Or the day of the Qatar Grand Prix.
And the " hole shot ", what does he think? “ It's not bad, in the sense that there isn't much difference. But now in MotoGP the start is crucial and several times last year we lost positions when reaching the first corner. So that might help us, but we're still testing it. We hope to be able to use it soon. »
MotoGP Test Qatar J1: times
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
