Fourth Row Start for Movistar Yamaha Teammates in Jerez de la Frontera

Qualifying

Both Movistar Yamaha MotoGP riders showed 100% commitment during today's FP3, FP4 and the qualifying sessions at the Circuito de Jerez - Ángel Nieto, but their efforts were not met by the desired results. They secured 10th and 11th place respectively on the grid for tomorrow's Gran Premio de España.

Rossi took a little time to get underway at the start of the Q2 heat, but had trouble finding some clear space out on the track, which kept him from pushing to the maximum. By the time he was no longer followed, his tyre had dropped, so he headed back to pit lane after two hot laps for a tyre swap.

With a little less than six minutes left on the clock, he joined the track activities again. He found himself in 12th position, which spurred the Italian on to post some strong laps. His third try resulted in a 1'38.267s, which moved him up to provisional eighth place. He continued to look competitive on his next attempt, as he bettered his personal best time in the first two sectors, but in the end he came just short of making any progress up the rider order. He ended the session in 10th place, 0.614s from first.

Valentino Rossi

Position: 9th - Time: 1'38.267 - Laps: 8

"The feeling was very similar to yesterday. I wasn't so bad in the morning with the cooler temperatures, but in the afternoon it became hotter and I suffered a lot with the tyres and it was difficult. It's a shame because we tried to modify the setting of the bike a lot, but we were not able to improve. So I have to start from P10, which isn't easy, and also my pace is not fantastic. We have to fix all the small details and we'll see what happens."

Massimo Meregalli

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP - Team Director

"After the four challenging practice sessions yesterday and today, we knew the qualifying sessions would be tough. The performance level was really high today and in the end our riders are 0.3s from the front row. We will give all we have to bridge this margin for tomorrow. The warm up will be fundamental, because it's our last opportunity to fine-tune the bike, but we have to be careful as the temperatures - and therefore the track conditions - will be totally different during the race. For this reason, we won't take any big risks preparing elaborate changes, but we will be amending the settings according to today's data, especially focusing on improving acceleration. Vale and Maverick will be starting from the fourth row and we expect that it will be a hard fight for them."

Report and Images provided by Yamaha