YAMAHA FACTORY RACING RIDERS PREPARE FOR FINAL PUSH
Yamaha Factory Racing riders Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards
began making preparations for the final round of the 2005
MotoGP World Championship at Valencia today, with the cloudy
conditions at the Ricardo Tormo circuit brightened by the
return of the factory’s traditional red, white and black
racing colours. Both riders’ YZR-M1 machines and leathers
are decorated in the famous livery, in commemoration of Yamaha's
50th Anniversary and its extraordinarily successful year in
racing this season. Rossi was seventh fastest in both sessions
as he worked on adapting the set-up of his machine to the
demands of a tight and twisty circuit after the fast and flowing
characteristics of Phillip Island and Istanbul. There is certainly
more to come from the Italian tomorrow after he ended the
day with a lap time which was over 1.5 seconds outside his
pole position record of 1’32.478, set two seasons ago.
Colin Edwards also made a steady start to the weekend, lapping
tenth fastest as he continued to work on a new riding style
designed to increase his corner speed.
VALENTINO ROSSI (7th - 1’34.040; 53 laps)
“I like the colour scheme very much – it is like
going back to the 1970s. The bike and the leathers look really
nice. Today we’re having a few problems with the front
end and also with acceleration. We are losing a lot of time
in the slow corners and we are not strong at the end of the
lap in general. We have some problems and some of the others
are very fast but I am not too worried. We’ve had difficulties
before on a Friday and worked them out for Saturday so I am
confident we can overcome them on this occasion too. Everybody
is tired because seventeen races in a season is a lot but
we will keep pushing until the end.”
COLIN EDWARDS (10th – 1’34.129; 57 laps)
“I am getting to grips with this new riding style and
I feel I have made a big step forward already this weekend.
Every time I go out on the track I make progress and the team
has been very helpful. My Crew Chief Daniele is showing me
where I can be faster and where I can be later on the brakes,
which is really helping – there’s definitely a
team effort going on. I feel the times are there this weekend
but I now have to find the confidence in myself to push on
and keep moving forward. We will see what else we can come
up with tomorrow.”
DAVIDE BRIVIO – GAULOISES YAMAHA TEAM DIRECTOR
“It was another slow start to the weekend for us, something
we have become used to this season! The positions don’t
look good but there are a lot of riders who are close together
and if we make the improvements we know we are capable of,
then both our riders should be much higher up tomorrow. As
usual on a Friday we analyse the information and try to find
as many solutions before practice continues tomorrow.”
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