Movistar Yamaha Search for Grip in Catalan Qualifying

Below is the report from Yamaha racing regarding the qualifying at Catalan.

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP's Valentino Rossi lines up in 13th for the seventh round of the MotoGP season held at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

The track was returned to the 2016 Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya race layout, so only the FP3 results would determine which riders would secure a place in Q2. As the Factory Yamaha teammates finished outside the top10 in the morning free practice session, they had to take part in Q1.

In Q1, Rossi waited for the first group of riders to get out on track before he left pit lane and took fifth place on his second flying lap. He quickly returned to the pits with less than six minutes on the clock for a tyre swap.

The Italian was eager to improve on his second stint, though he had only four minutes left to put in two more laps. He was pushed back to seventh as the pace quickened, but soon moved up to fourth on his next attempt. He had time for one more go and was looking threatening, only to miss out on an entry into Q2 when he bettered his placement in the rankings to third with a 1'44.661s. He will start tomorrow's race from the fifth row on the grid.

Valentino Rossi

Position: 13th - Time: 1'44.661 - Laps: 7

"We had some good ideas for today, so I expected to be more competitive, but it’s a little bit like the situation in Jerez, with a lack of grip we suffer a lot with the tyres and the qualifying was bad. I was also unlucky I lost the entry into Q2 by just one position, so for sure it’s difficult because the pace is not fantastic. It will be a hard race for everybody because the tyres seem to struggle to produce grip, especially in the hot conditions it will be hard, but we will try something else tomorrow morning and we’ll see."

Massimo Meregalli

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team Director

"We tried different settings and various tyre options with both Maverick's and Valentino's bike during FP3 and FP4, but none of the options gave us the expected improvement. With this in mind, Maverick’s achievement of coming through Q1 shows how hard he’s pushing. Valentino put in a couple of strong laps towards the end of the first qualifying session, but unfortunately he just missed out on Q2 by 0.040s and will be starting from 13th place. We still have a lot of work to do for tomorrow, we will be working hard this evening to come up with solutions that we can test in the warm up, which will be crucial to prepare for the race."

Image source: Yamaha racing