Rossi hopes for better braking on Saturday

World Champion Valentino Rossi was third quickest on Friday in Portugal and is hoping to improve his braking around the Estoril circuit on day two of the GP.

With four races to go and 30 points of advantage in the general standings MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi does not want his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo to finish ahead of him this weekend in Portugal, but that is just what happened in Friday free practice.

In third place in FP1, Rossi therefore has some improvements to make on Saturday, after seeing his young colleague lap 0.421s ahead of him at Estoril – where Lorenzo won the race last year.

Rossi felt that the month away from his Yamaha M1 machine since Misano had affected him on Friday, saying after the practice session, “This is quite a difficult track to come back to after a long break because the braking is very hard and it's quite stressful on the arms, but I think it will be better on Saturday.”

The Italian continued, “We have a slight problem in the balance of the bike in these hard braking areas which we need to work on tomorrow to find a way to improve; we're already quite fast but we need to close the gap a bit more so we will make the most of our time tomorrow so that we're in good shape for qualifying.”