MotoGP news

Rossi happy despite conditions

The Fiat Yamaha team duo of Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards put in a positive initial showing, finishing the session second and fifth respectively. The MotoGP riders should have had two more practice sessions today; an extra hour having been added to allow them time to learn the new circuit. As a result a revised schedule tomorrow will see a two-hour MotoGP practice in the morning, from 0900 to 1100, before the standard one-hour qualifying session in the afternoon.

"Unfortunately we had very bad weather today but this morning my first impressions of the track were good, better than when I came here to do some laps with the safety
commission on a street bike," said Rossi. "I think they've done a very good job with the bumps; we asked them to resurface another time and now it's not so bad. Of course in the wet we're not riding at the maximum, but it seems okay and I was quite happy. Because of the rain we lost two hours, which makes things more difficult for everyone, but we have an extra hour tomorrow and the forecast is much better so I hope that we
will get some dry time. My performance this morning was quite good, we tried a new rain tyre on the rear and it worked well. Melandri was quite far ahead but anyway I'm quite
happy. Of course it's another story tomorrow in the dry, but I think we have some more improvements for the dry setting as well so I am looking forward to it."

Edwards added, "What time we had this morning was really good! Once I'd got the hang of going the opposite way around the track to what I was used to from my Superbike days, I felt pretty comfortable out there and my bike felt good in the wet. We went out
initially and just did a few laps to get a bit of a feeling, before coming back in and changing the setting accordingly. We did almost the whole session on one set of tyres and they felt really good, much better than they have previously in the wet this season. We had a lot of grip which was very encouraging. Obviously we could have done with the extra time this afternoon and the weather has been unbelievable but everyone's in the same boat so we're going to have to make the most of it!"

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