Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi ended a difficult first day in Sepang happy with the progress the team has made with the YZR-M1 over the winter.
The Italian veteran, who enters his 22nd year of grand prix racing in 2017, was feeling under the weather after waking this morning with a crippling migraine. Having sat in a dark room for nearly 90 minutes in his hotel, Rossi eventually made his way to the Sepang Circuit to begin his programme.
Yamaha has brought, what Rossi described as, ‘the real’ bikes to Malaysia and the Italian was happy with how they felt compared to the initial versions brought to the Valencia and private Malaysia tests last year.
The key areas the Japanese manufacturer will be working hard to improve this week are the new motor’s performance – which wasn’t keenly praised in Valencia last November – and tyre conservation at the rear, a hindrance in the second half of races in 2016 for them.
Rossi completed 28 laps today, focussing on the M1’s new engine and the electronics. The chassis he used were identical to those first tried last year, but he’ll have a new one to test tomorrow.
The nine-time world champion’s running was unfortunately cut short when rain fell in the final couple of hours of the session. He ended the day eighth fastest on the time sheets, just over a second off of Ducati test rider Casey Stoner’s pace on a 2m00.695s.
“The first feeling wasn‘t so bad, because in this session we finally have the ’real‘ two bikes that we will use during the championship and they are better than the first prototype that we tested in November, from many points of view,” the Italian said.
“Unfortunately, it was a difficult day today. This morning I woke up with a very bad headache and until 12 o‘clock I wasn‘t in good shape. After that we were able to do some laps and the feeling was good. In the afternoon we had to finish the work but it started to rain, so we have to wait and hope that in the next two days we will have good track conditions. We will try some new things tomorrow. Today we worked on the engine and the electronics and found some good stuff.”
