MotoGP: Rossi and Viñales get rave reception in Indonesia

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP racer Valentino Rossi and Maverick Viñales have received a rave reception in the Indonesian capital city of Jakarta, when the two visited this week to help unveil Yamaha’s new R15 road bike.

Visiting Yamaha Indonesia Motor Manufacturing‘s dealer meeting as well as revealing the bike, showing just how important the market is to the manufacturer, thousands of people turned out to see the pair.

And Rossi even got the chance to catch up again with local racers Galang Hendra Pratama and Imanuel Pratna, who travelled to Italy last summer to attend the Yamaha VR46 Master Camp at his VR46 Ranch.

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“It was a short visit, but it was a great pleasure. The passion from the Indonesian fans and the media‘s interest is always nice to see and a good way to get motivated before the test in Sepang. I again felt very welcome in this fantastic country and I want to thank Yamaha Indonesia Motor Manufacturing for organising this trip.

“It was also great to catch up with Yamaha VR46 Master Camp riders Imanuel and Galang again. It had been a while since we last met and trained together and it‘s great to see that they are still very passionate about racing. It has been a fantastic day at the YIMM dealer meeting and I hope to stay longer the next time I come over, but now I will have a few days off so I can relax and prepare for the test in Sepang and one last media event in the Philippines.”

Viñales, on his first trip to Indonesia as a Yamaha rider, says he was blown away by the reception that they received.

“The event in Indonesia was really good. It surprised me how polite the people are here, they made us feel welcome and I‘m very thankful for that. The dealer event was nicely organised and the photo shoot was also fun, so we enjoyed it a lot. Before coming here I hadn‘t realised how big the city of Jakarta is. I felt really happy here and we‘ve had a great time, and especially today I had a lot of fun riding. I was there for the presentation of the All New R15 and I got to ride it on the track. I enjoyed the event a lot and in the afternoon we went to a big media gathering which was fun too, we got many presents so I‘m happy about today. Now I‘ll get some rest and train hard for the Sepang test.”

Indonesia remains without a MotoGP round of its own, but development is continuing slowly at the Sentul circuit and Dorna boss Carmelo Ezpeleta confirming to MCN last week that they’re still hoping to host a round in 2018.

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