MotoGP news

Rossi still searching for grip

Just five days after his thrilling home victory at Mugello, Valentino Rossi was back on board at the Montmelo circuit in Catalunya today, running a one-off livery on his M1 in celebration of the Italian national football team, the 'Azzurri', and their impending European Championship campaign. Rossi's bike was complemented by his leathers, which have been designed to make him look like an 'Azzurro' himself, complete with football shorts, shirt and socks.

After heavy rain overnight the track was still wet in places this morning, especially on the long start/finish straight, which is overshadowed by the huge Montmelo grandstand. The rain meant that the notoriously slippery track had even less grip than usual and Rossi spent the day testing Bridgestone tyres and refining the setting of his M1 to suit the demands of the circuit, with improving traction a priority. He was consistently fast throughout the day, finishing second in first practice and third this afternoon, when the drier surface meant that times were well over half a second quicker than this morning.

Speaking about Friday's two free practice sessions Rossi said: "We've got a hard job here because this is one of the most difficult tracks for the surface; you slide so much! It's very important to try to find the best traction for the long acceleration areas, and so we've tried a lot of different tyres today in order to try to understand what's going to help us the most. The grip is worse than normal here today because of the rain overnight and so this is making it even harder, plus with Bridgestone I need quite a different riding style to last year so we have to think about this too.

"The setting of Mugello is more or less okay as a base but the important thing is the traction and at the moment we still need to improve this."

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