MotoGP news

Rossi hopeful starting from second row

Fiat Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi will start tomorrow's French Grand Prix at the head of the second row, after qualifying fourth in Le Mans this afternoon.

Following on from a tricky afternoon yesterday, today was much better from the start for the 29-year-old Italian and he was second fastest in this morning's free practice session and much happier about his race pace. This afternoon saw more of the same good work from Rossi as he concentrated on refining set-up and finalising his tyre choice with Bridgestone, before using his three qualifying tyres in the later stages of the session. With his last tyre Rossi was confident of making a run for the front row but he could not quite make it and had to settle for fourth, though he remains confident of being able to play a key part in tomorrow's 28-lap race.

"Today everything seemed to go very well and I was quite confident; I thought that with the last qualifying tyre I could do 1'32.9 or even 8 and be on the front row, but at the end we had a small problem and couldn't manage this," said Rossi. "Of course the first row is always better but with the race tyres we are in good shape, with a strong rhythm and a great set-up. Tomorrow I will look to make a good start, try to get to the front immediately and then try to stay there with the other fast riders. As I said, our race pace is fine but there are four or five other riders with a similar fast pace so it's going to be a very interesting race tomorrow! My target is to be on the podium so now we're hoping for another dry day and then we will do our very best to be there."

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