Sachsenring MotoGP: Valentino Rossi bemoans Yamaha set-up

Valentino Rossi’s bid to regain the MotoGP world championship lead in Germany this weekend didn’t get off to a great start when he languished over a second off the blistering pace set by a resurgent Casey Stoner.

The Italian was fourth with a best time of 1.22.796, but that left him a massive 1.035s adrift of factory Ducati rider Stoner on combined times.

The seven-times world champion was one of only three riders that failed to better his lap time from this morning in the second session as he bemoaned a lack of set-up.

Rossi was mainly struggling with change of direction and he said: “For sure I’m not happy after today’s practice! This afternoon we tried some modifications to the setting and we decided to try a softer set-up, but things didn’t work how we hoped and we couldn’t improve our time.

“In the fast corners I wasn’t fast enough, and I was always a little bit wide. This afternoon I couldn’t ride how I wanted to. Obviously this afternoon’s choice is not the right way for us at this circuit and therefore tomorrow morning we will return to this morning’s set-up and try to close the gap to Casey.

“I didn’t try the new electronics today and actually at the moment it’s more likely that we won’t this weekend, but I did try some different Bridgestone tyres and we found one which we think will be okay for the race.

“I am confident that our potential is more than today so we will do our best to improve tomorrow.”