Valentino Rossi has warned he and Yamaha are “not very fast” on race pace, despite qualifying second for Sunday's Czech Grand Prix.
Rossi shadowed eventual poleman Andrea Dovizioso on his final flying lap to lift himself up from outside of the top 10 to second with a 1:54.956s, missing pole by just under three tenths of a second.
The Yamaha rider was one of only a few to run the soft rear tyre during race simulations in FP4, and was able to lap within a second of Marc Marquez, who was using a fresh hard option.
However, Rossi – who has not won a race since last year's Dutch TT – believes he is “not very fast” with all available tyre options, and says starting between Marquez and Dovizioso will be important as a result.
“During practice I struggle, I always struggle because my pace unfortunately is not very strong,” admitted the Italian.
“So we try to understand different things on the bike, but especially different combinations of tyres, from the front and rear.
“So we make a lot of tests, but in general with all tyres we are not very fast. But already from yesterday, but especially from this morning, I know I have a good laps [in me] with new tyres.
“I was able to improve the laptime of last year and also the laptime of this morning, when it was a bit colder.
“It was a very good lap, I arrive very much at the limit without making any mistakes. So it is good, and considering we are not fantastic on race pace it's also important to start from the front row because I'm in the middle of Dovi and Marc, who are the two guys with better pace.
“So will be very important to try to stay with them at the beginning and see what happens during the race.”
Sunday's race is expected to be run in similarly scorching conditions to those experienced throughout the weekend so far, but Rossi has not ruled out the possibility of gambling on racing the softer tyre despite the temperature.
“Yes, for me, it was a mistake to not try the hard [rear tyre] yesterday because maybe with more laps we can maybe understand better.
“But this morning we try, this afternoon. Problem is I'm not very fast. Gamble? Usually I'm not very happy about a gamble.
“If you go with the soft you are fast at the beginning, but it's difficult to arrive at the end.
“But we will have to see about the temperature because if we have less temperature maybe it's more easy [on the soft tyre]."
Discussion about this post