Disappointed, of course, but he is worried even more. It was with this state of mind that Valentino Rossi presented himself at the press conference, after the twelfth place obtained in the Barwa GP, on the Losail circuit. Because the nine-time world champion started from the fourth box after the excellent qualifications and because the debut in the race with the M1 of Team Petronas seemed to have completely different premises.
Valentino, what happened?
After a few laps I started to feel annoying vibrations from the rear of the bike. It is something that we had already encountered both in tests and during the tests, but that seemed to be solved, but instead the problem came back.
What kind of problem?
I put too much stress on the rear tire, which ends up not performing enough after a few laps. The problem is obvious and known, the solution, unfortunately, is much less so, also because today it was colder and therefore it is very strange. Already today, however, we have started to work to solve this problem, so as to understand if and how we should intervene to prevent it from happening again. We met for a long time in the garage and we will do it again tomorrow, so as to present ourselves at the start of next Friday’s free practice with the appropriate solutions. I didn’t do the race I was expecting.
The start was not bad …
No, it was better than other times. We had a good start, so much so that Vinales and Quartararo were also behind, then at the first corner the Ducatis got very strong, but I wasn’t in a bad position. The problems came later, there was a collapse of the grip in a short time
Was it the same problem that Franco Morbidelli had?
I haven’t talked to him yet, but I think his problem was more on the bike. Yesterday we tried both with the harder compound, precisely because we weren’t fully convinced, but then the times weren’t good and in the end we opted for the soft one. It didn’t go as we hoped.
Maverick Vinales with Yamaha won the race …
I am very happy for Yamaha. Maverick drove an impressive race and Quartararo also did not go badly: they both used a different setting of the M1 and this means that for next Sunday we will have some more references to consider to evaluate different solutions for us too.
What do you think, in general, of this first GP of the season?
As for me it is clear that I am disappointed, but I hope to be able to solve the problem together with the team. As for today’s race, I can only rely on the order of arrival and the times, given that, from behind, I didn’t see the top battles. I think I can say, however, that in addition to Vinales, to whom I congratulate for what he managed to do if you think he was with me at the beginning, Pecco and Zarco also had a great race, burning Joan on the final straight. Mir. This first GP of the season now offers us certainties about the values on the field and references that we could only suspect before.
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