Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi says that finishing sixth in the Czech GP at Brno is a ‘positive’ development following a tough last few races.
Rossi has failed to finish higher than eighth in the last four races, with three successive retirements from Mugello to Assen coming as the lowest point, before scoring his first points since Le Mans at the Sachsenring with eighth just before the summer break.
The seven-time premier class champion put in a solid performance at Brno to secure sixth and top Yamaha, only nine seconds from the race-winning Honda of Marc Marquez.
Rossi said that while positive, he was expecting more following the strong practice displayed by the Japanese marque’s M1 machines.
While not showing particularly strong speed in practice himself, team-mate Maverick Vinales had promising race pace across the dry sessions, culminating in the second-quickest time in the morning warm-up prior to the race.
Petronas SRT satellite rider Fabio Quartararo also performed well in practice, leading FP2 ahead of Marquez.
Rossi, who’s victory drought runs back to the 2017 Dutch TT, also revealed that Yamaha have a new engine to try in the post-race Brno test, alongside other developments.
“For sure I’m not happy with sixth but it’s an improvement over the last few races, I was able to ride the bike in a better way and at the end the distance to the guys ahead wasn’t too bad,” said Rossi.
“The riders in front were faster, but I was closer than the previous races so that’s positive.
“We have a new specification engine to try tomorrow in the test as well as something else, so it’s an important test and hopefully we can find an improvement.”
