Valentino Rossi says he is “not as bad” as the 16th he finished Qatar MotoGP practice in suggests, and blamed his slump in pace on front tyre problems in FP2.
The factory Yamaha rider topped the first session – held in late in the afternoon – by almost a tenth, but failed to make an improvement on his FP1 time in the evening outing, and was left in 17th as a result.
Rossi says his M1 underwent very little change between session, and that he “suffered” due to the front tyres putting the bike “out of balance”.
“It was a strange day because, maybe we aren't as good as this afternoon, but for sure we are not as bad as this evening,” said Rossi, who was 1.6s off the pace in 16th on the combined timesheets.
“This evening, sincerely, we didn't modify the bike very much, but I had a lot of problems with the front tyres because we got out of balance and I suffered very much.
“I was slow. At the end, the track had a lot of grip, so a lot of top guys improved and the best lap time is a new record. So they were very fast, but unfortunately it was a difficult practice for me”
Currently facing Q1 in qualifying on Saturday, Rossi admits the warmer temperatures likely to be present during FP3 will make it “difficult” to improve enough to gain direct passage into Q2.
“The big problem is I'm out of Q2 at the moment. Tomorrow in FP3 maybe the conditions will make it hard to improve my best lap time.
“So it will be difficult to enter Q2 directly. We have to find a way to be faster.”
Team-mate Maverick Vinales was second quickest at the end of Friday despite running out of time to complete the time attack programme he had hoped.
While conceding Yamaha still has to “improve the bike a lot”, particularly acceleration, he was pleased with its overall performance.
“I was planning to make two time attacks, but finally I didn't have the time to make one,” Vinales, who was 0.474s off top spot, explained to motogp.com.
“But actually I'm really happy with how the bike is working. We still have to improve the bike a lot, I think we are losing a lot in top speed, but the bike is getting great in the corners.
“We are going to try to make the last corner better, especially on the acceleration. We need to improve in that area, so let's see tomorrow if we can do that.”
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