Valentino Rossi will be hoping that the new Michelin tyres introduced this season will help cure his front end woes suffered at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
Historically the Circuit of the Americas has exacerbated tyre wear on the front of the M1 Yamaha, due to its reliance on the front end.
Last weekend at the Argentina GP, we saw a tyre led weekend as a delamination in a practice session saw the race split in 2 with Race direction enforcing a mandatory bike swap at the midpoint of the grand prix. The first half of the race saw Rossi catch Marquez and start to fight with him before the enforced bike change.
On his second bike, Rossi was not as competitive as Marc Marquez and found himself drifting back into the clutches of the battling Ducatis, managing a respectable second place finish. “In Argentina was a difficult race for everyone, especially because there are a lot of problems with the rear tyre during the weekend and they decided to make the race in two parts. I feel very good on the first part but unfortunately with the second bike I wasn’t strong enough and I was lucky to arrive on the podium.”
It is expected that again, as always, tyres will play a major part in the weekend. Rossi is waiting for Friday to evaluate whether the new Michelins will solve his historic front end problems at the track: “This track is very difficult, so long and so technical and you have all different things from the beginning to the end In the last years it wasn’t the best track for us. Usually we suffered a lot with the front here but now we have to understand if we’ll have the same problem with these tyres. We have to try to be ready and see what happens during practice.”
The action starts with FP1 at 15:55 BST on April 8.
