Valentino Rossi ended the first day of running at the Circuit of the Americas in a much more positive fashion to recent races, as set-up work done in Argentina has allowed the Italian to hit the ground running on Friday.
Rossi began the day looking as if his problems from the previous races had carried over, the Yamaha rider desperately looking for a better bike on corner entry.
Focussing on a set-up not too dissimilar to what he ran in Argentina, the Italian was able to find well over a second in lap time in second practice to go fourth quickest on the timesheets with a 2m04.806s.
“It was a better start compared to the first two races for sure; those were a disaster,” he said.
“I think this is very important for us, because we didn’t change the bike a lot from the Argentina setting and tried to understand if the bike we also works on this track, which is very different.
“Already this morning I was in the top 10 and not far from first. It looks like we will be able to do some adjustments, but now we have to better understand the base setting.”
The Italian was happy enough with his lap, but admits there is still work to do in regards to race pace. Rossi is also looking for more confidence on the brakes, with CoTA featuring some the biggest stops of the season.
Interestingly, Rossi floated the idea of running the Yamaha’s aerodynamic fairing in practice, the vast number of low-gear acceleration points around the 5.5km Texan venue warranting its use. However, the circuit’s many direction changes, particularly in the first and final sectors, saw him run the standard design instead.
“On this track the ‘winglets’ can help. We do a lot of accelerating from a low speed, but we have a lot of change of direction, so we prefer to go with the normal cowling,” he explained.
“In the afternoon I did a good job with the softer tyre, so I’m fourth, but we still have to work on the pace.
“Especially braking, it is difficult to stop, but for sure, compared to Qatar and Argentina, this is a better start. After Qatar I expected better results, but in Argentina I suffered a lot.
“There we really modified the balance of the bike a lot and now I have a better feeling. For me, we understand something important.”
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