Le Mans MotoGP: Yamaha stars explain slow pace

Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo and Colin Edwards have explained Yamaha’s surprisingly slow pace in Le Mans today.

Many expected Yamaha to dominate this weekend’s French GP after the YZR-M1 claimed two victories in the opening three races of the 2009 campaign.

The Japanese factory also enjoyed a dominant Le Mans race in 2008, with Italian Rossi leading home Fiat Yamaha team-mate Lorenzo and American Colin Edwards for a clean sweep of the podium.

But Rossi was the quickest Yamaha rider in a rain-hit opening practice session today, but the 30-year-old was only sixth quickest with a best time of 1.36.751. That left him 0.615s slower than quickest rider Andrea Dovizioso on the Repsol Honda.

Rossi said: “The conditions weren’t easy today, it was quite cold and the track wasn’t so good, and then it rained and so we couldn’t use all of the session.

“It was still useful to get some laps done in the dry though, even if we couldn’t learn as much as we would have liked to today.

“Every lap has it’s own small problems and during the first rain break we made some modifications to our setting and actually I was quite confident that we were on the right track.

“We hoped to get a few more laps before the end of the session once the rain stopped but unfortunately it started again and so we had no real chance to check our work.

“We know we’re fast in the rain but I prefer it dry…the problem is that you never know with Le Mans, the weather seems to change every five minutes!”

Lorenzo was 0.273s slower than his Italian team-mate in seventh and the Japanese GP winner said: “It’s a pity about the rain because we needed the time today, but this is the situation so we have to deal with it.

“I just hope it doesn’t continue. At least we had some dry track time but the situation of the track wasn’t so good and I was quite slow.

“We need time at each circuit to learn how our bike works with the Bridgestone tyres and we didn’t really have enough time today, but we will keep trying tomorrow and hopefully we can improve our pace.”

Edwards was baffled at his slow speed as he could only clock the tenth best time with a lap of 1.37.269.

The Texan said: ““It was a really weird day to be honest and I’m a bit confused. My record proves that I like this track and we know the Yamaha is a really strong package in Le Mans, but right from the start nothing really seemed to work.

“It’s obvious we’ve got a couple of small issues to solve for tomorrow because Valentino (Rossi) and Jorge (Lorenzo) are not up near the top either. So out of the box nothing really seems to be working and that is very strange.

“From my side I just don’t feel comfortable. Braking and corner entry I’m not that confident and I was running wide quite a lot. It felt like we had a lot of weight on the rear but I need to get my thinking head on tonight, sit down with my guys and figure something out.

“We’ll check over some data with Yamaha too because right now I’m a little bit confused. But we’ve definitely got to do something to make it more comfortable.”