Valentino Rossi has conceded that if conditions are similar to that in Friday practice, Yahama will struggle to hold onto a podium finish.
Rossi qualified third for the German GP at the Sachsenring, behind Marc Marquez and surprise of the session Hector Barbera.
Conditions were much warmer in FP3 and qualifying which benefited the Yamaha bike compared to on Friday where both Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo struggled considerably, languishing outside the top 10.
Despite qualifying on the front row for tomorrow’s race, Rossi concedes Yamaha are in ‘big trouble’ if conditions change for the worst.
“In the normal conditions, I think that we are quite competitive, we can make a good race. But looking at the practice, Marquez is a bit faster, so I think it will be difficult.
“But now, the bigger question mark for everybody is the weather, because everybody is saying that tomorrow will be more similar to yesterday.
“And sincerely, if it’s very very cold, we are in big, big trouble, because we are not able to ride the bike.
“And if it’s wet, it’ll be a big question mark for everybody, because we’ll have to restart from zero and we don’t know if we are competitive or not.”
Rossi believes the improvement performance of his bike was not solely down to the change in weather conditions.
“It’s not the best track for us, for our bike – usually our bike needs a little bit more space to make the corners. But yesterday was something good because we were able to understand the way to follow, to try and fix the lack of feeling with the front.
“Because we know that, when the front tyre doesn’t work, it’s a disaster – but I felt something on the bike that I didn’t like and I think we made the right move for today. It wasn’t just the temperature.”
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