MotoGP: Pre-Race Practice at Rossi's Ranch

MotoGP practice sessions are underway at MotorLand Aragon but riders got warmed-up earlier this week with some friendly sideways action at the MotoRanch VR46. See the video here courtesy of Valentino Rossi Racing:

Meanwhile, the first free practice sessions were completed today for this weekend’s Gran Premio Movistar de Aragón at the Motorland Aragón circuit in Spain. Andrea Dovisioso on the new Ducati GP14.2 bike is setting the pace with the Repsol Hondas of Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa in second and third, respectively. Rossi and his Movistar Yamaha teammate are reportedly struggling with lack of rear grip and sliding at the Aragon circuit, despite having had a private test at the Spanish track earlier in the year.

FP2 saw an increase in track temperature, causing the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP pair to struggle more. Lorenzo was able to manage seventh position with a 1’48.969s, 0.003s slower than Pol Espargaro (Monster Yamaha Tech 3), who was sixth.

Rossi ended up in tenth spot with a 1’49.312s, 1.027s down on Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) who led the session thanks to a last minute run on soft tires.

Lorenzo commented, “We are using a completely different tire to the rest of the riders. Valentino didn't like so much the hard front, I don't know if he tried the soft in the last laps but for me it was better with the softer option. Tomorrow we will do some more laps to see if it will be constant for the duration of the race. We didn't start in the best way possible, we are very far from the front, but the thing that worries us is that we are far from my ideal time here from last year so we have margin to improve. I feel great physically and mentally but the bike needs to improve a bit. We are going to test a different set up for tomorrow so I’m looking forward to continuing.”

Rossi explained, “Together with Yamaha and Bridgestone we decided to try the hard rear to understand if it’s good option but it proved difficult. At the same time I struggled with the front as I was suffering some under steer so we decided to try the soft front; that was not so bad. We got some important data for tomorrow because we tried all the combinations. We need to work a lot as we suffer with rear grip and corner speed. The bike is difficult to ride and I’m not fast enough so tomorrow we have to improve a lot.”