MotoGP news

Promising start for Rossi in Portugal

Valentino Rossi was quick to put his recent disappointments behind him today, finding a good pace early on in Estoril and finishing the first day third in the combined standings. Rossi has an excellent record at the Portuguese track, having finished on the podium in all seven of his premier-class visits here, and he was quick to make the most of his experience to find a good base setting for his M1.

Speaking about his first day at Estoril Rossi said: "Today I am quite happy because we've made some improvements to the new engine and it's going well for us, plus the new tyres that we found at the last test are also working quite well. We have a few small problems to fix, but I was able to ride a lot better today; I was quite fast from the start and we did some good work to find the right setting.

"Also this afternoon Tamada used a qualifying tyre so in reality we were second fastest on race tyres and quite close to Stoner; this is a good result. The bike is not so bad and it feels like we've made a good step forward. At the moment we need to think about the second part of the race, because this is where we expect more problems, but tomorrow the condition of the asphalt should be improved so hopefully this will also help our tyre performance."

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• 27 Jun.
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• 26 Jun.
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• 24 Jun.
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• 23 Jun.
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• 22 Jun.
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• 21 Jun.
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• 20 Jun.
  • Positive practice for Repsol Honda
  • Tentative return for Lorenzo

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