Estoril MotoGP: Valentino Rossi chasing grip

Having solved braking stability issues that plagued Valentino Rossi in Estoril yesterday, the Italian blamed traction issues for costing him the chance of claiming his seventh pole position of the season in qualifying for the Portuguese MotoGP today.
Despite his issues though the reigning world champion still managed to qualify his YZR-M1 machine in second place and only 0.260s adrift of team-mate and title rival Jorge Lorenzo.
The 30-year-old clocked a best time of 1.36.474 to ensure he will start on the front row for the 11th time in 2009 and he said: “We improved a lot this afternoon and the situation with the braking is better and more under control. I am still not at the maximum and we have some other problems. We need to find more traction exiting the hairpin and this will be very important for the race tomorrow. It looks like we’re not so bad but Jorge has been a little bit faster and he’s been in first position in every practice which shows he is in great shape. It will be quite a strong fight tomorrow but we will be ready.”