Ha sido el mejor viernes para Valentino Rossi (Yamaha Movistar MotoGP™) en lo que llevamos de temporada. Siendo un hombre que mejora claramente el domingo, esta vez pudo ser 4.º con los neumáticos blandos y al menos, ya está situado más cerca de los más rápidos que en Qatar y Argentina. El italiano fijó un tiempo de 2:04.806 por detrás de Márquez, Zarco y su compañero de equipo Viñales.
Valentino Rossi: “Ha sido un buen comienzo para nosotros. Tampoco ha sido un grandísimo comienzo pero me he sentido más cómodo que en Argentina encima de la moto. Con las gomas blandas estamos cerca de los de delante. Los baches están siendo un problema. Aunque es una gran pista para pilotar, los baches complican el pilotaje puesto que parece que una parte del terreno está cediendo. Lo hablaremos con la comisión de seguridad”.
Valentino Rossi, P4: "On this track the winglets can help. We do a lot of accelerating from a low speed, but we also have a lot of change of directions, so we prefer to go with the normal fairing. It was a better start compared to the first two races, for sure, those were a disaster. I think this is very important for us, because we didn't change the bike a lot from the Argentina setting and tried to understand if the bike also works on this track, which is very different. Already this morning I was in the top10 and not far from first. It looks like we will be able to do some adjustments, but now we have a better understanding of the base setting. In the afternoon I did a good lap with the softer tyre, so I'm fourth, but we still have to work on the pace. Especially braking, it is difficult to stop, but for sure, compared to Qatar and Argentina, this is a better start. After Qatar I expected better results, but in Argentina I suffered a lot. There we really modified the balance of the bike a lot and now I have a better feeling. For me, we understood something important.”
— Yamaha MotoGP (@YamahaMotoGP) 21 April 2017