MotoGP news

Rossi closing in at Jerez test

Shaking off any remaining pain in his recovering hand in Jerez today, Valentino Rossi recorded the second fastest time of the day, dipping well under the lap record he set on the way to victory back in 2005. The Fiat Yamaha rider, who also won the race here last March, set a best lap of 1'40.134 on a qualifying tyre, after a total of 56 laps on the second day of the year-ending three-day test.

Rossi's second day on Bridgestone tyres was once again focused almost entirely around adapting his M1 to the different tyres and discovering as much as possible about his new rubber. Rossi's time was bettered only by Dani Pedrosa with a lap of 1'39.993, whilst new 2008 Fiat Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo was tenth with a lap of 1'40.883. 

"Today we made longer runs than yesterday and our times were still consistent, which means we are working in the right direction," said Rossi. "We still are still missing something in terms of performance, but for sure we are making improvements in terms of constancy. Bridgestone has brought quite soft tyres here to Jerez, because they expected lower temperatures, so I am sure that with some harder material we could do even better. The pace is not bad at all and it is similar to the one I had in the race here at the beginning of the past season. I could probably have done even better today with the material I had, but I kept some "margin" to improve tomorrow."

"Tomorrow we will test some more qualifying tyres and we will also make a long run," he added. "Today we tested 2007 tyres, but tomorrow I will have some brand new tyres in order to find more grip. Of course we need to work on the bike, too; the bike's power delivery puts a lot of pressure on the tyres, so we need to make it "sweeter". Generally speaking this is what I was waiting for: new motivation and a lot of fun, and in fact I am having a lot of fun with the new tyres. I am looking forward to starting the next season because it will be exciting and interesting, but before that I want to finish this test in the best way and then start again in January in order to arrive at Qatar in the best possible shape."

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