Tyre choice will be key says Rossi

Valentino Rossi missed out on a front row start in his home GP at Misano by just 0.073s in Saturday’s qualifying session, having been in the fight for a top-three spot for much of the session.

"The front row would have been good for the race tomorrow but I just missed out today,” said the Fiat Yamaha rider who has won for the past two years at Misano. “I think I had the potential today but unfortunately with the last tyre I found some traffic at the end.”

With a medium and hard rear option available for the race Rossi is yet to make his decision on which Bridgestone compound to go for, but says the choice will be central to his chances of pushing for a podium in front of a fervent home support.

“The rear tyre is going to be very important for tomorrow's race and we still have a decision to make; at the moment we are thinking more of the hard one but we need to wait and see the weather,” he explained. “I am feeling better here than in Indy because it's much cooler; I am still suffering a bit with my shoulder in the hard right braking zones but it's not too bad. It's fantastic to be here in Italy with all of these fans and I'm excited about tomorrow.”

Rossi also explained his new helmet design which displayed a clock that displayed different times at the start of each of today’s two sessions.

“The helmet is a joke about my timekeeping - we have put a big clock on the top of it with a different helmet showing the right time for each session so I make sure that I arrive on time!” he added.