Valentino Rossi told Motorsport Week that the BMW GT3 cars are struggling with understeer at Spa-Francorchamps, the venue for the third round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
“When I drive the car, it’s quite good,” he said to Motorsport Week after qualifying on Friday.
“In the fast, we are not so bad. We have little bit too much understeer in the long corner and this makes us lose a little bit of time. But the feeling is quite good.”
Prior to qualifying, he told selected reporters, including Motorsport Week, that he expects this race to be harder than last time out at Imola.
‘We’re coming from a very good weekend in Imola where we were very competitive,’ said the Italian.
‘I think that this weekend will be a little bit more difficult. Last year we struggled a lot, was a difficult race. But we work a lot with the team on the car and it looks like the car is better, it’s improved from last year. So I hope that we can be better.
‘But here it’s always very difficult because the track is so long and you need to find the right balance. But we will see and I hope that we can fight for the top positions.’
Rossi reflects on Imola
Rossi and his teammates in the #46 WRT BMW, bronze-rated Ahmed Al Harthy and BMW factory driver Kelvin van der Linde, were fighting at the sharp end at Imola last month.
The nine-time motorcycle world champion took a magnificent pole at his home race, his first in WEC, in front of thousands of devoted fans. However he made a mistake in the race while fighting for the lead with Simon Mann in the #21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3, punting the Ferrari into the gravel and receiving a penalty as a result.
“We did some mistakes and we lost [at Imola],’ he said, clearly wanting to move on from talking about the race in Italy.
“Anyway, podium is always great, also because the first race was a bit more difficult. Here the target, we want to try always to fight for the podium. So this is the target. Podium or top five, take some points”
Rossi’s teammate Al Harthy got the car into Hyperpole on Friday, where Rossi was able to set a time good enough for ninth on the grid.
“During the practice, during the quali also the lap was quite good and the feeling with the car was quite good, and also I drove quite well,” he said after qualifying.
“I didn’t make any particular mistake in braking so it was ok. The problem is that we are 2 seconds off. So this I don’t know if it’s good news or bad news because we don’t know sincerely which way we can go faster”, he concluded.
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