Valentino Rossi had a solid start from seventh position on the grid of the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday, climbing up a place going into the first twisty section, but sadly, it wasn‘t to last.
He crossed the line for the first time in seventh place as he got into an early battle with Johann Zarco, and later with Jorge Lorenzo and his own teammate, Valentino Viñales.
However, the nine-time World Champion soon saw an opportunity to move up the order and grabbed it with both hands.
Within five laps the Doctor moved up from ninth to fifth, but had to make his YZR-M1 as wide as possible to hold off Dovizioso.
With 17 laps to go, a small wobble cost Rossi fifth position. It was the first sign of grip troubles for the Italian, who was unable to keep a charging Danilo Petrucci, Aleix Espargaró and Jonas Folger at bay. He crossed the line in tenth place, 38.682s from the front.
“It was a very difficult race after a difficult weekend. I never had a good feeling with the bike and the tyres,” he explained. “We tried to work a lot, especially to fix the spin and acceleration, but unfortunately for the race we did worse.”
“We tried to modify it a bit, but I was also in trouble with the front. At the end I had to slow down a lot and had a lot of vibration. It was OK to arrive right at the end, but it was a difficult weekend for the whole team. We expected to be stronger and more competitive at this track, looking at the results of last year. We need to try and understand what happened, tomorrow we have the test and we‘ll see.”
