A fast-charging Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) took a P2 finish in the HJC Helmets Grand Prix České republiky, coming through the field from a “desperate” P12 near the start to hone in on the front and slice through to follow winner Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda) home. Rossi, who chose the harder option rear tyre but the softer option front, took some time to get up to speed before the red sectors started to appear and the veteran Italian used his superior grip to haul himself back into contention.
Valentino Rossi (P2): “At the beginning I was desperate because I thought we made a mistake. But after? Lap-by-lap the harder rear was coming better and it was a very long race. You have to stay concentrating and not making any mistakes. It was a great race and I’m very happy for these 20 points, because now I’m second in the championship and I think today we did a good job. And we made the right choice on the rear tyre. Unfortunately we didn’t choose the hard front, that was because in the morning I already didn’t have a good feeling with the soft. I wasn’t as brave as Cal.”
After the parc ferme interview, Rossi was further quizzed on the result – gaining P2 over teammate Jorge Lorenzo and moving closer to Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) in the championship – and whether he thought the 53-point mountain was on he expected to be able to climb.
“No,” was the response, with the Italian saying the goal was simply to do his best in the second half of the season and see what happened.