ROSSI BACK ON TOP AS THE ACTION HEATS UP IN QATAR
Newly-crowned World Champion Valentino Rossi returned to
the MotoGP paddock in dominant fashion today as he clocked
a record lap of the Losail International Circuit to top the
time sheets on the opening day of action at the Grand Prix
of Qatar. Rossi arrived in the country last night but shook
off any trace of jetlag with 19 laps of the 5.380km circuit
in the first free practice, with temperatures already touching
34ºC during the morning session. The heat rose several
degrees in the afternoon but so did Rossi’s pace, the
Italian eventually dipping under Carlos Checa’s (Ducati)
pole record time, set on the Yamaha YZR-M1 at last year’s
inaugural Qatar Grand Prix. After spending much of last weekend
at Sepang trying to solve front-end grip problems with the
current version of the machine, Rossi today reported major
progress and admitted to enjoying riding without the pressure
of a potential World Championship success hanging over him.
Rossi’s Gauloises Yamaha team-mate Colin Edwards also
showed signs of returning to his best form today, topping
the time sheets for much of the afternoon session before eventually
dropping to sixth place. The American had also struggled with
front grip problems in Malaysia but reaped the benefits of
a new range of Michelin tyres today at a circuit that saw
him equal his best ever MotoGP finish of second place last
season.
VALENTINO ROSSI (1st – 1’58.714; 42 laps)
“For sure myself and the whole team are more relaxed
now that we have won the World Championship. We have had a
lot of problems for the past two races - it has been difficult
and we have never found a good setting for the bike, but here
in the afternoon we found the right way. Now we have returned
to the level we were at two or three races ago, I have a better
feeling for the front and rear of the bike. The track conditions
are better than they were last season – they’re
still not 100% but compared to the first practice last year
there is much more grip. As long as there is no wind or rain
overnight it should improve a lot more by Saturday.”
COLIN EDWARDS (6th – 1’59.493; 43 laps)
“I don’t know what it is about this place. At
flat tracks I usually tend to struggle to get any kind of
feel for the front but here it’s as flat as a pancake
and for some reason it works for me. We spent most of the
day testing front tyres and we had a lot of help from Michelin.
At the end we tried out a new front tyre but it didn’t
have the effect we hoped for so the lap time could have been
much better than it was. I’m still having a little trouble
between the braking point and the apex but this track doesn’t
accentuate that as much as circuits like Motegi and Sepang,
so it’s not so much of a worry. The main thing is that
we’ve got grip, and when you’ve got grip it makes
everything else much easier.”
DANIELE ROMAGNOLI – COLIN EDWARDS’ CREW
CHIEF
“Michelin have given us a lot of different tyres to
choose from here and they’ve really helped us out. We
already had a good base set-up for the bike from last season
and it seems to have worked for Colin. We have obviously had
some problems at the last few races – at Sepang the
conditions were very different from the tests and we were
unable to use a lot of the data and at Motegi we had some
front-end difficulties that we were unable to solve. We’re
using a different range of front tyres here and things are
looking much better. When a rider doesn’t have feeling
with the front it makes it very difficult to set the bike
up, particularly with Colin because he is so sensitive in
this aspect. Hopefully this can be the start of a good weekend
for us.”
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