With his teammate quickest of all in Spain for their final race weekend together in the Yamaha garage, Valentino Rossi had a less than desirable start to the Valencia Grand Prix. Unable to complete his out lap due to technical issues he returned to the pit box.
Putting the small detour through the paddock behind him, the Doctor was back on his way on his second bike a quick ten minutes later to start his quest for the perfect setting. He consistently improved his pace when switching back to his first bike and wrapped up the session in second place, 0.387s behind his teammate, with a 1‘31.432s lap.
Rossi got straight down to business in the second practice, holding third on the timesheets for most of the session whilst working on improving the feeling with the bike with the harder tyres. In the final stages of FP2 he was sitting in fifth place when the lap times tumbled.
The Italian was able to better his morning time when he put in the softer option and finished in eighth place in the combined times with a 1‘31.257s, 0.794s behind his teammate.
We had a small problem in the bike but it‘s OK,' rossi said. “We just stopped to not create any bigger problems, but it's good. This morning at the end of practice it wasn't so bad, I finished in second place. In the afternoon I had a problem, because we tried the harder tyres that are supposed to be the tyres for the race, but I didn‘t have grip and I wasn‘t fast enough. At the end I put in the soft and improved my lap time, but anyway the balance of the bike is not OK, I‘m not happy with the setting so we have to work and try to make it better.”
