Valentino Rossi admitted that his pace during the Aragon Grand Prix was ‘worse than expected’ as he struggled to a distant eighth.
Rossi took the chequered flag 23 seconds after race winner Marc Marquez, and 13 behind seventh placed Aleix Espargaro’s Aprilia having been unable to make the hard-compound rear tyre work as well as his fellow Yamaha riders.
Yamaha as a whole struggled with the use of the soft rear tyre-which Ducati used to great effect as Andrea Dovizioso and Jack Miller rounded out the podium places behind the dominant Marquez- and were forced to use the hard for the race as a result.
Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo also struggled to make the tyre work over a race distance, but finished fourth and fifth respectively-18 and 14 seconds ahead of the Italian.
Rossi revealed he had to slow his pace relatively early in the 22-lap contest as his tyres began to cry enough, but conceded that his issues were far more prevalent than his fellow Yamaha men.
“I knew it would be difficult to fight for the podium because there were 3 or four guys faster, but today was worse than expected because after several laps I had to slow down as I had problems with the grip of the tyres,” explained Rossi.
“It was similar to what happened at Silverstone, but I don’t want to blame the tyres because it’s more our problem, we always struggle with grip on the rear and when we struggle with that we damage the tyre faster so it’s tough to have a good race.
“It looked like everybody with the hard rear tyre had issues towards the end, although I had issues earlier, but I don’t know if the soft would be any better because in practice the soft didn’t work well on our bike.”
Extreme rear tyre degredation costs Vinales podium
Vinales looked to be having a far more positive time of things during the Aragon race as he looked to be holding down second fairly securely with just a handful of laps remaining.
He then also began to struggle for grip having pushed early on to try and bridge the gap to the runaway Marquez, with the Ducati pairing of Dovizioso and Miller hunting him down.
Vinales was helpless to defend against the raging Desmosedici’s, Dovizioso first blasting past down the back straight to take second before Miller was snatch third away as he dove past into Turn 1 just as the duo started the final tour.
He tried to fight back over the final lap, but was unable to do anything and had to settle for fourth.
“I had no chance,” said Vinales.
“I tried my best but I didn’t have enough grip in the tyres to keep going. Overall I’m happy, to be the first Yamaha again is important for us.
“I tried my best. I tried to close the points to Dovi but it was impossible, on the straight I had no chance.
“I knew second position was possible. I pushed but finally the last two laps the tyre was very on the limit. I did everything I could, I nearly crashed two or three times from the rear but today I have to settle for fourth.
“That’s the maximum I had and I'm happy that at least in the middle of the race I was strong.”
