MotoGP: Rossi upbeat despite tyre penalty

Valentino Rossi is upbeat after the first day of action at Phillip Island despite losing most of his fast laps and possibly facing a qualifying journey through tomorrow’s Q1 session after falling foul of rules around Michelin’s super-soft wet tyre.

Running on a torrentially wet track that eventually saw the day brought to a premature halt, Rossi was docked his entire 11-lap fast run in the least severe of the day’s conditions, exceeding the 10-lap limit put on the tyres and moving him from second to 20^th.

“I know the tyre, and I knew it would be a good tyre for today. I was told only to do ten laps and I did nine – but they counted the out and the in lap too, and they fucked all my run and I’m nearly last now. It’s a shame, because it could be bad for tomorrow, so we hope that tomorrow is a bit better.

“It’s a good tyre for the race, but Michelin are worried because of what happened to it in Brno. There we had 25ºC in the ground and it was drying, but here is the place for the super-soft. I did my run very well, and afterwards the tyre looked like new. For me, if it’s like this it’s an option for the race.”

However, speaking after the session, Michelin boss Nicholas Goubert explained their reasoning for bringing the tyre, as well as admitting that with the forecast set to improve for Sunday’s race it was unlikely that the ruling would change after the delamination issues some riders experienced with the same compound in damp conditions at Brno in August.

“Sometimes, we bring a very soft slick too that riders know they’ll never use for the race, but that they can use in the morning at the beginning of the session, so that they can get a little more feeling. A lot of guys tell us that they’ll only use the soft slicks for the first ten laps on Friday or Saturday morning and then they’ll use the harder option afterwards.

“We’ll see what happens tomorrow and look at the tyres, but I don’t think we’ll lift the restriction because we have a limited number of tyres. It’s very difficult to forecast what the weather is going to be, and even though Phillip Island isn’t demanding on the front we’re being very careful after what happened at Brno.”

 

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