Rossi unhappy with the balance of his bike at Motegi

It was a tough first day of running at the Twin Ring Motegi for Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi, who bemoaned the set-up and balance of his YZR-M1. The Italian was seventh fastest overall.

This morning’s 45-minute first practice went reasonably well for Rossi, the Yamaha rider managing fourth on the time sheets with a 1m46.222s. But the afternoon proved troublesome, the cooler temperatures making things trickier for the double Motegi winner.

Rossi tried running the harder option front and rear tyres but couldn’t find any grip with them, so reverted back to the softer compounds. This allowed him to improve his lap time to a 1m45.532s but this was only good enough for seventh on the combined time sheets, half a second off the pace.

The Italian says that he is struggling under braking, an area that you need to be confident in at any circuit but more so at Motegi, and is just generally unhappy with the overall feeling of his Yamaha.

Despite the tough opening day, Rossi has reason to remain optimistic. Teammate Jorge Lorenzo was fastest at the end of FP1, even though conditions had grown colder from FP1 to FP2, which tends to be when the Yamaha riders struggle the most.

“It was a mixed day, because this morning wasn‘t so bad and I was quite fast, but this afternoon was a difficult practice. We tried the harder tyres, but both the front and the rear didn‘t give very good grip so I lost some feeling,” explained Rossi.

“At the end we put the softer tyre back in and I improved my lap time, but it wasn‘t enough because I‘m not very happy with the setting and the balance of the bike. It is very difficult to stop in braking, so we have to work and try to recover. About the tyres, the feeling is not so bad. The lap times are also not so far from last year‘s, but this afternoon we unfortunately had a lot of crashes and also some injuries for Pedrosa. This is because in the afternoon it looks like the temperature drops down very quickly and after that it becomes dangerous. Good luck to Pedrosa and for us tomorrow, we will try to modify the balance and we try to be strong.”