Rossi: “In the afternoon we suffered more”

Scorching temperatures in Aragon leave ‘The Doctor’ expecting a difficult weekend after ending Day 1 ninth overall

Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) ended the opening day at the Gran Premio Movistar de Aragon as the ninth quickest rider on circuit and with temperatures soaring - a notorious problem for the YZR-M1 - ‘The Doctor’ is expecting a tough weekend.

“It’s important to stay in the top 10 because it will be a difficult weekend,” admitted the nine-time World Champion, who encountered a difficult race day at his home GP in Misano as temperatures increased: “Historically, we always suffer more here than in Misano and, already in Misano, our performance wasn’t fantastic. The problem here is also that while I am in the top 10, the gap from the top is also bigger. So, it will be hard. We have to concentrate, work in all the areas, on all the small details and try to make it as best as possible.”

Rossi was seventh in the cooler morning conditions but by the end of FP2, both he and teammate Maverick Viñales were over a second off Marc Marquez’ (Repsol Honda Team) P1 time: “It looks like this afternoon we suffered more than in the morning. It looks like everybody suffered more, I think, but our data is bigger,” explained the number 46, who then joked that he would request a morning race in the Safety Commission meeting.

“Today, in the safety commission I will ask if we can race at 10 o’clock in the morning… we have to work on the balance of the bike to try to stress the tyres less.”

Still, Rossi holds a provisional automatic Q2 spot and if Yamaha can solve something overnight, their chance of a good qualifying and podium challenge might not be too far off the radar. 

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