Satisfied Rossi ready to build

Valentino Rossi appeared to have put his Estoril problems behind him as he recorded the fastest time in the opening practice session of the Iveco Australian Grand Prix.

There were no signs of the rear-grip issues which plagued the reigning World Champion last time out, with Rossi leading Free Practice 1 at Phillip Island for the majority of the session.

In good conditions – with the track temperature at 36 degrees – Rossi posted a time of 1’31.032, utilising the specifically designed Bridgestone rear tyres for the weekend to good effect and fine tuning his YZR-M1.

“I am happy because we’ve started in a good way, which is very important because there is not a lot of time,” said Rossi. “I’m at the top in first position and I am constant with all the tyres.”

“We especially hope that the temperature remains like this for the rest of the weekend,” Rossi continued. “We studied a lot of data and maybe we understood the mistake, in fact this time we worked more like we did in Misano, and we hope to arrive on Sunday with a better bike.”

“We can definitely improve more – even though we already have a good pace we will continue to work tomorrow and try to find a little bit more, but for the first day I think we can be very happy about our work.”

Commenting on rumours in the Italian press of a switch to Ducati next season, Rossi was clear in his dismissal.

“Sincerely I don’t understand why,” he stated. “Especially because it is 100% impossible, because I have a contract with Yamaha. So it is not possible to go to Ducati next year, but also because I don’t want to!”