Movistar Yamaha Get Up to Speed in Spielberg FP Sessions
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14/08/2017
Free practice
Due to looming clouds and a persistent threat of rain, the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team had to make every dry minute of today's free practice sessions count, ahead of this weekend's NeroGiardini Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich. both riders were fast to find their rhythm in the quite cool conditions, with Rossi taking 13th position respectively in the combined times.
Though not feeling 100% fit, Rossi stuck to the same approach he had at the previous Grand Prix weekend. He worked diligently on his bike's setting in FP1, to be fully prepared for the qualifying tomorrow. Focusing on improvement, he ended the morning practice with a best time of 1'25.251s for 12th place, 0.620s from the top of the timesheets.
Once the track dried midway through FP2, the Doctor used the second session to fine-tune the balance of his bike, to match it to the Austrian circuit's layout and the expected weather variations for this weekend. The Italian rider pushed hard at the end of the session to improve on his morning time by 0.368s, posting a 1'24.883s lap, for twelfth position in the FP2 results. He ended the first day of practice in 13th place in the overall standings, 0.837s from first.
Valentino Rossi
Position: 16th - Time: 1'24.883 - Laps: 39
"It wasn't a very good day, we had some problems, especially this morning was a difficult practice. When I woke up this morning I also didn't feel very well, I didn't have energy, it felt like the flu, so this morning was difficult. This afternoon, unfortunately, in the end my position was not in the top-10, which was the target, but we improved the bike and we improved the feeling. We're not strong, we need to make some other modification to try to be faster, but we're all very close and we are there. We need to improve, but for tomorrow we have a lot of things to try. Braking is very important, but also acceleration. I suffer a bit on acceleration because I spin a bit too much and lose time. Also in sector 3, where last year I was strong, this year I am very bad because we don't have the right balance of the bike, so for tomorrow we will try something different."
Massimo Meregalli
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP - Team Director
"Considering that the Spielberg circuit is one of the more challenging tracks on the MotoGP calendar for us, today's results are quite positive. It was a pity we lost some track time in FP2 because of a wet spot on track, but all in all our riders' pace is good. We've been quite productive. Today we were able to compare fairings, tyre specs - both front and rear -, and also different set-ups. Valentino felt a little under the weather this morning, he had a strong rhythm with the race tyres in both sessions. When he went out for his time-attack in FP2 the decision to use the soft front tyre didn't pay off, but he still has FP3 to improve his lap time and promote directly into Q2. In general, there's a margin for improvement for both riders' bikes."
