Rossi: “This afternoon was difficult”

9-time World Champion suffers tough FP2 in Japan but ready to pull off a Saturday turnaround

Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) had a good first session at the Motul Grand Prix of Japan, until the afternoon’s FP2 saw the Italian struggle slightly more with setup and braking on the harder option tyre. With temperatures dropping quickly towards the end of the day, Rossi avoided incident in the tougher conditions and did improve his laptime by returning to the softer tyre – but has braking issues to solve at the brake-heavy Twin Ring Motegi before lights go out on race day.

Valentino Rossi (P7): “Mixed day. In the morning I was quite fast but this afternoon was a difficult practice because we tried the harder tyre and neither the front nor rear gives me a good feeling. At the end we put the soft tyre back on and I improved the laptime but it’s not very good and I’m not happy with the setup – it’s very difficult to stop in braking. So we have to work and try and recover. The feeling isn’t so bad and similar to last year but this afternoon we had some crashes – and injury for Pedrosa unfortunately – and it seems like the temperature dropped very quickly and it got dangerous. So good luck to him, and tomorrow we’ll work on improving the bike.”