Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi will start the MotoGP race at Silverstone on the second row, and the doctor is ‘satisfied’ with his performance on track today.
He heads up row two, and for the title contender he will have to fight for a possible victory alongside the two Repsol Honda’s of Marquez and Pedrosa and his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo.
Marquez put down some impressive times on the harder compound rear tyre, and Rossi saw what his title rival was doing and decided to try it out for himself. But when they put that tyre in the back of his YZR-M1 he felt that it didn’t work and slowed him down.
The weather will play a big factor in the races tomorrow, but he believes that Marquez and Lorenzo will be dicing for the win, and he and Pedrosa will be fighting for a podium.
“We tried a lot of things and by the end of this afternoon I was not so bad, we need to try more if we want to fight with them. It will be hard to fight for the podium as Pedrosa is also on the pace,” said Rossi, at the track.
“With qualifying I am satisfied and I am quite happy and my target was the second row and I am fourth and that is better. Now we have to wait for the weather and see what happens tomorrow and I hope for some good weather and a dry race.
“I wanted to do more laps with the softer tyre and then Marquez tried the harder option tyre and had some impressive times, and we tried it, but it didn’t work for me, and I didn’t like it with the Yamaha and I was too slow.
Rossi wants to win and with Lorenzo and The Doctor on the same points a victory is key for the experienced rider, and wants to ultimately beat his team-mate on Sunday.
“First of all I want to start in the best position I can, if Jorge is able to beat Marc and Dani is able to beat me then I will lose a lot of points. I am happy because if there are good conditions I think I can do a good race,” Rossi added.
“It is more important for me to beat Jorge, but with Marquez it is important too as at the moment they are both stronger than me. On paper it looks like Marquez and Jorge will fight for the victory and myself and Dani will fight for the podium. But the track is so long and if you can get a little bit out at every corner then the situation can change.”
