Rossi to erase '06 Istanbul disaster

Former world champion Valentino Rossi will look to continue his brilliant start to the 2007 MotoGP world championship in Istanbul this weekend on a track where he is still to register a victory.

The Italian will be looking to erase the memory of a disastrous 2006 in Turkey where he finished fourth after qualifying 11th.

This was following the chronic early season chatter problems with last year’s factory YZR-M1 990cc machine.

Rossi goes into round three of the ’07 season looking to build on the nine-point advantage he has over Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa.

So far he has recorded a second place in Qatar was followed up by a dominant win in last month’s Spanish GP at Jerez.

The seven-times world champion, speaking to MCN, said: “Istanbul is not one of my favourite tracks and I don’t like it a lot. And last year was a disaster for us.

“We struggled a lot but at the end the race was not so bad and I arrived fourth. I hope this year it will be a lot better.

“The track has nothing that will be of gain over the others for the M1. If the bike works well it will be ok. But I’m worried about the temperature because we seem to suffer a little bit more than Honda in the low temperature with the tyres.”